Against the Law
by servantofclio
Summary: She's a tech whiz who doesn't trust the police. He's a cop on the edge of burnout, still looking to make a difference. They're going to have to rely on each other to stop a threat to the entire galaxy...
1. Chapter 1

Created for the 2012 Mass Effect Big Bang

Illustration at silvermittt dot deviantart dot com by silvermittt

Thanks to w0rdinista/Niamh St George and flippedeclipse for beta reading, to thetricia for comments on the action, to tarysande and my spouse for consultation and cheerleading, and to anonymous moose for suggesting the title.

* * *

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya sat on an examination table in a Citadel clinic and desperately tried to think through her options.

When she'd left the Migrant Fleet for her Pilgrimage, she had thought she was prepared. She couldn't have been more wrong. She hadn't been prepared to meet geth, to be chased by enemies she didn't even know, to end up here on the Citadel, injured and alone. She sniffed, and the noise came out sounding like a sob.

"Don't worry." The human doctor in front of her patted Tali's shoulder. "You're going to be just fine. I removed the bullet. Fortunately it didn't hit bone or any major organs. The antibiotics should prevent infection, but you can call me if you have any problems. Oh, and don't overexert, or the stitches may pop."

"Thank you," said Tali dully. The wound in her side still hurt, in spite of the painkillers Dr. Michel had given her. Worse than that, though, was the insecurity of having to disassemble her suit in front of a stranger—an alien—and in a strange place. She hadn't removed the entire suit, of course, only the damaged sections, but it still made her anxious to be exposed like that, even in a sterile room in a medical clinic.

Dr. Michel shifted her weight and brushed a lock of red hair out of her face. "Listen—are you in some kind of trouble?"

Tali flinched. This was the kind of question she'd been afraid of. She'd hesitated to seek help, even after being shot, because she just didn't know who she could trust. She pushed herself off the table and onto her feet. "It's nothing..."

"Even around here, people don't get shot over nothing." Dr. Michel looked at her earnestly. "If you've done something wrong, I promise I won't turn you in."

"I haven't," Tali blurted. She wrung her hands. "I just... I have some information and I think it's valuable to someone." _Or dangerous to someone_, she thought. "I don't know what to do with it."

"Well... you could talk to C-Sec. There's a detective I know is reliable, I can call him for you—"

Tali shook her head. "No. I... I'd rather not." Part of her wanted to agree with the human, but the rest of her shied away from the idea. She had been taught all her life that Council authority never gave quarians anything, and she had heard so many terrible stories about C-Sec from quarians returned from Pilgrimage: harassment, questioning, arrest, even deportment from the Citadel. She wanted to avoid C-Sec as much as possible. "Do you know if there are any information brokers around here?"

Dr. Michel frowned. "Well, there's Fist. He runs a nightclub a level down called Chora's Den. He's into some dangerous things, though… you might be better off talking to Barla Von. He's a volus, he has an office on the Presidium."

"Thank you," said Tali. "I really mean it. You've helped me a lot." She was grateful just for the woman's kindness. She had treated Tali just like any person, and she had known how to treat a quarian patient. She'd even found materials for Tali to patch the damage to her suit.

Dr. Michel smiled. "It's no trouble. I'm glad I could help."

"Well... thank you, again." Tali bowed her head politely and left the clinic.

Outside, Tali found herself a quiet corner, watching the bustling crowds of the Ward move past her. She tried calling the volus Dr. Michel had recommended. A cheery-voiced VI assistant answered, stating that Barla Von was exceedingly busy, and inquiries were best done in person in his office. She cut the call without leaving a message and sighed. She was worried about going all the way to the Presidium by herself. She would stand out there, far more than she did among the more varied population of the Wards. She activated her omni-tool again and called Fist.

#

Dr. Michel watched the young quarian leave her clinic with a frown. She seemed so scared, and whatever her secret was had already gotten her hurt once. She went back to her work, taking inventory and restocking supplies, but she couldn't get the incident out of her mind. Finally, she made a decision. She should at least try to get the young woman some help.

#

Garrus Vakarian sat at his desk in C-Sec and seethed.

He wasn't the only one; the attack on Eden Prime, only a few days earlier, was making everyone at C-Sec edgy. There had been a lot of muttering, especially among the human officers. To make matters worse, they had very little in the way of real information. The news reports said there had been a geth attack on a major human colony, and that was all; the rest of the details were vague and cryptic. There were rumors that a Spectre had been involved, or possibly killed; no, there had been more than one Spectre, and they'd fought a duel. What a Spectre would even be doing on an innocuous human colony wasn't clear. A few hours after the attack, Executor Pallin had called a general briefing, but it had been singularly unhelpful, merely outlining the protocols for identifying and responding to a geth incursion on the Citadel. Ridiculous. And then Pallin had looked over the corps of investigators, straight at Garrus, before he glanced aside and called, "Aediem. I have a special assignment for you."

Junius Aediem. Garrus's least favorite fellow investigator. Oh, he was smart enough, and diligent enough, Garrus supposed, but he was also rigid, unimaginative, and too attached to protocol. Whatever Pallin wanted him for, it was obviously something to do with the Eden Prime attack. Aediem would get the inside scoop; he would hear crucial information, and might be in a position to make a real difference, if any of the rumors were true. Much as Aediem had gotten accolades for his recent cases, Garrus was privately certain he himself could have done better. And would do better with this case, if Pallin had only chosen him instead. But no, Aediem got hand-picked for the special investigation, and Garrus had to sit through several more days of briefings on how to spot a geth.

"I told you not to annoy Pallin," said Chellick.

Garrus glanced up at the other turian, leaning casually against the doorframe of his office. "My report was accurate—"

"I saw your report. It was accurate, and late, and included gratuitous commentary on how much unnecessary procedures had slowed you down. If you want the plum assignments, Garrus, you really need to stop pissing off your superiors."

Garrus clenched his jaw. "So you've said."

Chellick shrugged. "Sorry."

Garrus bit back several rude responses. Chellick was a friend, and it wasn't his fault that Garrus wasn't in the mood for well-meaning advice just now. "Yeah. I guess I'll just—" Garrus stared at his desk, at the giant pile of overdue forms he needed to complete. Days like this made him wonder why he was still sticking it out at C-Sec. For lack of any better idea what to do with his life, probably.

His omni-tool beeped, the tone indicating an incoming message, and Garrus lunged for it, grateful for any distraction. "Vakarian here." He waved absently as Chellick nodded and departed.

The voice on the other end was breathless and female. "Garrus? It's Chloe Michel."

Dr. Michel was a regular informant of his; he'd helped her out when the local gangs were hassling her at the clinic, trying to shake her down for medi-gel and restricted drugs, and he'd cultivated her since. A woman who ran a charity clinic down in the Wards saw a lot of the seedier side of the area. She'd given him useful information more than once. "Dr. Michel, how are you? Are you having any problems?"

"I'm fine, but something happened today that I thought you should know about. I had an unusual patient, a quarian female with a gunshot wound—"

"Gunshot wound? How'd she get that?"

"She wouldn't say. Fortunately it wasn't serious. But she did say that she had some valuable information. She's looking to make a deal to sell it, but... I don't know, I have a bad feeling about the whole thing."

Garrus's mind raced. "Do you think she's dealing with Fist?" That was not a good position for anyone to be in, especially someone who didn't know the territory well.

"I'm afraid she might be."

"All right. Give me her name and description, and I'll see if I can track her down. Thanks, Dr. Michel."

"Garrus, I told you before to call me Chloe."

He shifted in his seat. "Right, of course." He recorded the description she gave him.

At the very least, this quarian was a probable crime victim, and might have evidence about something more significant. So it wasn't a total waste of his time, and was far more interesting than paperwork. He eyed his desk disdainfully. And it wasn't as if he had anything better to do, thanks to Pallin and Aediem.

Locking his office behind him, Garrus went down the hall and rapped on Chellick's door. "Are you still running that operation at Chora's Den?"

Chellick eyed him warily. "Yes. What about it?"

"Anything unusual going on there today?"

Chellick leaned back in his chair. "I haven't gotten any emergency messages from my source, so probably not."

"Any idea who's pulling Fist's strings?"

"That's one of the things we're trying to figure out. Why? What's it to you?"

Garrus shrugged. "Nothing. Probably nothing. Got a tip on something, but it's probably not important."

"Is it relevant to my investigation?"

Garrus shrugged again. "Not that I know of."

Chellick's eyes narrowed. "Don't interfere with my operation, Garrus. I do not need months of work wasted because you went tearing into Chora's Den on a whim."

Garrus bristled. "I don't act on _whims_. I act on _leads_."

"Fine. If you get a _lead_ related to Fist, you _tell me _before you go anywhere near the Den."

"Fine," Garrus snapped back, and stalked off down the corridor.


	2. Chapter 2

Tali had scouted the assigned meeting place ahead of time: a corridor running behind the markets, close enough to Chora's Den that she could occasionally hear the music pounding out of the place. Having found it, she wasn't going to linger there until the meeting time. She didn't want to be that conspicuous.

Instead, she did her best to blend in with the crowds in the markets. It only worked so well. Shopkeepers kept looking at her suspiciously; people were constantly jostling her and then giving her scornful looks as if _she_ had caused the problem, even though they were bigger and clumsier than she was.

She was trying to look at a display of omni-tools, many of them much more expensive and fully-featured models than hers (although none of them, of course, had her own personal modifications). A broad-shouldered human male stepped in front of her, blocking her view with his great big back. Tali sighed, loudly, but the man ignored her. A hand descended on her shoulder, and she stiffened.

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?"

"Yes?" she said warily, turning. Her heart sank. The speaker was a tall, imposing turian in C-Sec's black-and-blue armor. Sharp blue eyes, one obscured by a blue-tinted targeting visor, stared down at her.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions. Come with me, please."

She nodded once and let him draw her aside, away from the crowds. Resisting would only look more suspicious. Most of the people around them didn't even notice; the few that did glanced away again, uninterested. The grip on her shoulder was firm, but not punishing, guiding her around a corner, down half a flight of stairs, and around another corner until they were alone. The officer stopped, turning so that she was between him and the wall.

He said, "You're making some sort of deal with Fist. What is it?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she returned, crossing her arms defensively.

"Don't play games with me." He crossed his arms as well and leaned forward slightly. "Do you even know anything about Fist? He's bad news. Do you have any idea what kind of business he runs? Or who he really works for?"

Tali fumed. How dare this officer treat her like an ignorant child? "I'm making a deal with the Shadow Broker. And I don't think that's illegal, so I don't see how it's any of your business."

His facial plates all twitched and his mandibles flared out. She blinked, fascinated; she hadn't had much opportunity to observe turians up close. "The Shadow Broker? Is that what they told you? Tell me, are you stupid, or just gullible?"

Tali's jaw dropped. She stared up at him. He was crowding her space, hemming her in, looming over her with his full height, a head taller than herself. She was not going to put up with this behavior; fed up, Tali found her voice. "What kind of question is that? Who _are_ you, anyway, you rude, arrogant turian _bosh'tet_?"

"Garrus Vakarian. C-Sec." He indicated the insignia on his armor, unnecessarily. "Dr. Michel called me. I've been looking all over for you."

"Dr. Michel called you," Tali repeated. She was surprised, and a little touched, that the human doctor had cared enough to worry that she might be getting into trouble. She was also a little indignant that the doctor thought she couldn't take care of herself.

"That's right. Unlike you, Dr. Michel has lived in this ward long enough to know that Fist is trouble."

Tali scowled, wishing that her faceplate did not obscure her features. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know you have something that's gotten you in trouble already, and that you think is valuable. I know that Fist is involved in black market goods, drug deals, and prostitution, and those are just the criminal activities we know about. And I know that no one meets with the Shadow Broker face to face. They've lied to you, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. These are not people you can trust to deal fairly with you."

"I don't see any reason I should trust _you_," she snapped, and immediately cursed herself. Stupid, stupid, it was foolish to antagonize the turian when he was right in her face, and bigger than she was, and armed.

Unexpectedly, he laughed, a bright, true laugh, and actually took half a step back, allowing her the tiniest bit more space. "Well, at least now you're demonstrating a more appropriate level of paranoia."

Tali frowned, folding her arms more tightly across her chest. "Why is that funny?"

"You're willing to make a deal with a lowlife like Fist and you're not going to trust an officer of the law?"

"Why should any quarian trust C-Sec?" she countered.

He tilted his head, his mandibles tilting downward. "Ah. You've had bad experiences. That would explain why you're not turning whatever you have over the appropriate authorities. Look, all I'm saying is I don't know why you'd trust Fist _more_."

Tali shook her head. Unwillingly, she had to admit that he made a certain amount of sense. "I—okay, if you talked to Dr. Michel, you should know why I went there."

"You were shot," he said promptly.

"Right. Well, I don't know who sent the person who did it. Who was a turian," she added pointedly.

He shrugged. "There are a lot of turians on the Citadel."

"The point is, I don't know who I can trust. I thought I should just get this data out of my hands."

He sighed. "So you don't trust me, and I can't persuade you not to trust Fist."

"I..." Tali hesitated. "Okay. Let's say I don't trust Fist. Or you. How would I decide which one to trust?"

He looked her over, thoughtfully. "When's your meet?"

She checked her omni-tool and flinched. "Soon." She didn't have long to make a decision.

"Let's check out the site. We'll see how they deal with you, and I'll back you up if you need it."

It was not impossible that he would shoot her himself, she supposed, but as much as she'd heard bad things about C-Sec, their approach usually came down to hassling and intimidation. She bit her lip and then nodded. "All right."

#

Tali hurried toward the arranged meeting site. She didn't want to be late, and the C-Sec officer had insisted on finding a spot where he could observe unseen, and that had involved him climbing up into the damn ceiling panels and taken far longer than she'd hoped.

As she approached the corridor where she was supposed to meet the Shadow Broker—or his agent—Tali stopped in her tracks. There were more people there than she expected. A turian, with white markings that covered most of his face, was talking to a pair of figures in full white armor. Salarians, she thought. She quietly made a minor modification to her omni-tool, amplifying sound, and caught a snatch of their conversation:

"... going to have to hunt her down all over the station."

"She can't have gotten far, there aren't that many quarians around here."

"There she is!" The turian had spotted her. All three of them stiffened, the two salarians turning in her direction. They were readying weapons, but not pointing them at her quite yet. Tali braced herself. The turian strode toward her. "Did you bring the data?" he demanded.

She took a step backwards. "Not so fast. Which one of you is the Shadow Broker?"

The turian snorted. "That's not how it works." Behind him, one of the salarians turned his submachine gun in her direction.

Vakarian had been right. "Then the deal's off," she said, and threw the grenade she'd prepared. It exploded between them in an array of sparks; their weapons whined, overheating, and shields went down. She heard a shot, and the turian in front of her dropped, blue matter exploding from his head. Tali turned and ran back the way she'd come, looking for any kind of cover. There wasn't much in this corridor.

Vakarian's voice crackled out of her omni-tool: "_Get down_." She complied, throwing herself flat and rolling, hearing gunfire over her head. She dragged her own pistol out of its holster and fired back toward the two salarians. One of them fell, though she wasn't sure whether that was her doing. The other had taken cover behind a large crate in the corridor. "_I've got him_," came the voice out of her omni-tool. As Tali watched, a ceiling panel behind the salarian slid aside. The C-Sec officer dropped out of the ceiling, practically on top of their remaining enemy. She heard the thud of fists striking flesh and jumped to her feet. A few moments later, she heard a shot, and ran over to find Vakarian standing over the downed salarian.

"Well, that was invigorating," he said, looking down. "Would have been nice to have someone alive for questioning, though."

Tali drew a deep breath and put a hand to her side. Her wound ached after the exertion. Vakarian looked at her sharply. "You all right? Do you need to get back to the clinic?"

"I think it's all right, just sore," she said. Her suit diagnostics weren't reporting any bleeding. "So, fine. You were right."

He grinned at her, sharp-toothed. "Thank you."

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "You're welcome. We shouldn't stay here, should we? What if more of them come along?" She glanced nervously at the eight-limbed creature in the corner, which chittered at them.

Vakarian ignored it. "We shouldn't stay, but I should call this in. This way."

Tali followed as indicated, and heard him reporting three corpses in the corridor. "—and better come quickly, there's already a Keeper in the area."

She had to hurry to match his stride, even though he made another call right after. "Chellick?"

Tali could hear the answering voice, which sounded like another male turian. "Garrus? What the hell are you up to?"

"Calm down. I haven't been anywhere near the Den."

"Well, _someone_ is shooting up the place."

"Really?" Vakarian paused and looked back over his shoulder. "And I'm missing it. Damn."

"Fuck off. Listen, I have to deal with this."

"Fine, I'll talk to you later." He cut the call, his arm dropping to his side.

Still working to keep up, Tali asked, "Where are we going?"

"My office, if you're willing to trust me." His eyes roved over their surroundings, alert to any potential threat.

"You've been okay so far," she allowed.

"Thanks." He glanced back toward her. "Look, you have to trust somebody, sometime. I want to see this data that's gotten you in so much trouble."

"Hear," Tali said. "It's a recording."

"Fine. I want to hear this data that's gotten you in so much trouble. And then we can figure out how to deal with it."

"Are you sure your office is safe?"

He gave her a sideways look. "Safe from what? There won't be anyone there but you and me, and I'm not going to hurt you."

Tali gave in. Even as cocky as he was, it felt better not to be entirely alone. "Okay. If you're sure it's safe, I'll show you what I've got."

#

The quarian stuck close to Garrus as he threaded his way through the markets of the Wards. He slowed his pace a little so she could keep up. Part of him wanted to take her arm and make sure she followed along, but he didn't. Already, her helmeted head turned this way and that, distracted by the bustling crowds, and her shoulders were hunched. He hadn't encountered more than a few quarians, but those were not the signs of a person at ease. She seemed skittish enough; he didn't want to make her more nervous.

Despite his earlier jibe, he could tell that she wasn't actually stupid or helpless. She had nerve, she could handle a pistol all right, and she'd trusted him enough to follow direction. And that little tech bomb she'd thrown had been particularly nice. But she was in over her head.

She hesitated as they entered the C-Sec offices, her hands twisting together. Garrus sighed. "I'm really not about to arrest you."

"Who said you were?" she said sharply, her spine straightening. Garrus stifled a grin. She was fiery, too. He had to like that, even if he wasn't so sure about her judgment. It was hard to tell with quarians, but he'd guess that she was fairly young. There were never many quarians on the Citadel at once, but there was usually a steady stream of them coming in, almost all of them youngsters fresh off the Flotilla.

She stayed close behind him as he led her back to his office, exchanging nods with other officers as he went. He was glad he had a private office for conversations like this one, even if it was small. Garrus unlocked the door and ushered her in ahead of him, then followed to remove a stack of datapads from a chair so she could sit down. He took his own seat on the other side of the desk, while she perched warily on the chair, still looking around. "All right, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," he said. "What's gotten you into this much trouble?"

She tipped her head to her right. "There's a surveillance camera."

"Yeah, there is. Is that a problem?" The camera existed for both their protection, in case there were any questions about how they'd conducted themselves behind the closed door.

She sighed. "I guess not. Okay. It's about the geth."

Garrus groaned. "Why am I not surprised that it's about the geth?"

Her luminous eyes narrowed behind her smoky face plate. "Excuse me? What do you mean by that?"

"Your people made a lot of trouble for themselves, making the geth."

Her eyes narrowed further. "We have paid for that! More than enough! We have been in exile all these years—"

"You made trouble for other people, too. Look at the attack on Eden Prime. I hope your people are properly contrite."

"I—you—" She broke off with a frustrated noise. "_I_ didn't make the geth. That was hundreds of years ago. I am not responsible for the mistakes of my ancestors, any more than you are personally responsible for the genophage."

Garrus grinned. "You're assuming that the genophage was a mistake."

"_Turians_," she spat, flinging up her hands. "You can justify anything when it's convenient to you, but if anyone else steps over the line, you're all judgment."

"What line?" Garrus asked, rather enjoying the argument. "Your people made yourselves an AI slave race. What did you think would happen, that they'd happily do all your work for you forever? The genophage, on the other hand, ended a threat to the safety and stability of the galaxy."

She settled her weight in the chair and crossed her arms. "Do you want to hear what I've got, or do you want to argue about the geth?"

"Right now I want to hear what you've got. We can argue about the geth later."

"I don't want to argue about the geth _at all_." She shook her head and sighed. "Fine. I managed to extract this audio recording from a geth data core."

Garrus leaned forward, interested. "Back up a minute. How did you manage to get hold of a geth data core?"

"It was mostly disabled. If you're quick and careful, you can extract the data before the geth wipes its own memory." Her tone was straightforward, confident.

His estimation of her skills went up a notch. "Hm. Interesting. Okay, let's hear it."

Her fingers flew over her omni-tool. A deep, unmistakable turian voice said: "_Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit."_

Garrus froze. He recognized that voice. Something nasty seemed to slither down his gullet. He almost missed the feminine voice that followed, saying: "_And one step closer to the return of the Reapers_."

Tali said, "The Reapers seem to be some kind of legendary machine race—"

He held up a hand. "Hold up a moment. Play the first part again? I think I know that voice."

"I thought it sounded turian," she said, and played the clip again.

"This isn't possible," Garrus muttered, searching for the voice-matching program on his terminal.

"Is it someone you know?"

"Not personally. It sounds like Saren Arterius."

She was very still for a second. "The Spectre?"

Even quarians from the back of beyond had heard of Saren. He really shouldn't be surprised. He brought up the program he was looking for and found a clip from one of Saren's rare public interviews to use as a sample. "One more time?"

The program had 62% confidence in the match. The program didn't matter; Garrus was certain what he'd heard. Neither he nor the program could identify the other voice. "I don't know that one. Asari, maybe. This doesn't make sense." He stood, pacing in the narrow confines of the office.

Tali half-turned to watch him. "Why not?"

"Because... it's _Saren Arterius_. The man is a legend. He was the youngest Spectre ever. He's served the Council for years, he's surely had hundreds of successful missions. He can't have gone rogue." Somewhere in the back of his mind, his father's voice warned him about working beyond the boundaries of the law, and Garrus firmly pushed the voice aside. He couldn't help remembering, though, that Arterius was known to have strong feelings on the subject of humanity, and Eden Prime was a human colony. He shook his head. No. Simple prejudice wouldn't lead someone like Saren to join up with _geth_, of all things.

"If he's that good at his job, wouldn't it be easy for him to get involved in something without anyone knowing?"

Garrus stopped short. She had a point there. But... Saren was a hero. Garrus _admired_ him, damn it. Envied him, even. He'd followed Saren's career for years. He'd hoped... once... to follow in the legendary Spectre's footsteps. It was that very familiarity which had made him able to recognize Saren's voice so quickly.

And if Saren had turned against the Council... then he was a traitor, a disgrace to everything he was supposed to stand for, a shame to the entire turian species. Garrus shook his head again, trying to come up with some counter to the quarian's question, when a sound outside the door caught his attention. He signed to Tali to keep talking, and moved toward the door as quietly as he could.


	3. Chapter 3

Tali was baffled. What was Vakarian doing? He'd stopped talking and was moving silently toward the door. He made an impatient gesture at her, which she took to mean she should keep talking, so she tried. "Um, I mean, because he's a Spectre, so he's above the law, isn't he, and most of what he does is classified anyway. How did you even recognize his voice?"

She was watching him stalk toward the door, looking every inch a predator, but she still started when he suddenly opened the door, lunged out, grabbed a lurking human male by the collar, and hauled him into the office, shutting the door behind him. Tali jumped out of her chair, her hand darting toward the pistol at her hip. Vakarian let go of the human, who staggered into the room, nearly crashing into the chair she'd just left. He caught his balance and tugged on his shirt, settling it into place, while Vakarian stepped back, arms crossed, standing between the human and the door.

"Harkin," he said, voice laced with contempt. "What the hell are you doing, listening at my office door?"

"What are you talking about?" the human returned. "Jesus, Vakarian, I was just passing by. You treat all your human colleagues this way?"

Tali slowly stepped to the side so she could see the man's face: pale skin, discolored under his eyes, a bit of stubble on his jaw. His clothes and hair were disheveled. He wasn't in uniform, and he certainly didn't look like an officer.

"Only the worthless, drunken ones," Vakarian replied. "Try again. You weren't passing by. You were standing there for at least two full minutes. I heard you."

Harkin muttered something under his breath.

"I heard that, too. Yes, the fucking turian does have damnably good hearing."

Tali couldn't quite stifle a giggle at that, and Harkin's watery eyes slid sideways toward her. His brows went up. "Well, hello there, princess," he drawled. "You having a little fun in here, Garrus?"

The turian's mandibles pulled in. "I was conducting an investigation," he said after a second.

Harkin chuckled. "Yeah, I'd 'investigate,' too. Nice tits and ass, but with quarians you always gotta wonder what they really look like under there, huh?"

Tali scowled. Vakarian said, his words clipped, "Her looks aren't particularly relevant to my investigation, Harkin. _Why are you here?_"

"You're the one who yanked me in here, asshole! I—"

Vakarian took one long step forward, grabbed Harkin's collar in one hand, and pulled him forward until they were nose to nose. "Stop. You were eavesdropping. Who are you working for? Fist?"

"Fist? I drink at Chora's Den, I don't work there."

Lightning-quick, Vakarian slammed his fist into Harkin's stomach. Tali flinched in sympathy. Vakarian said, conversationally, "I always knew you were dirty, Harkin."

Harkin straightened up, coughing. "You've got nothing on me," he snarled.

"Maybe not." Vakarian stepped back. "Maybe all I have are suspicions. I do know you've been suspended, which means you're not even supposed to be here. And I know you've been spending a lot of time in Chora's Den. How are you affording that tab, hm?"

"Screw you," muttered Harkin. Vakarian moved toward him again, and Harkin raised his hands defensively. "Fine. Fine! I heard Fist was looking for a quarian. Saw you and your little friend here passing by and thought maybe she was the one he was looking for."

"Who's Fist working for? The Shadow Broker?"

Harkin shook his head. "Nah. Not any more. Broker's got a bounty out on Fist. I hear some bigshot Spectre's calling the shots."

"Which one?" Vakarian asked quietly.

Harkin's face twisted into an ugly smirk. "Does it matter? Any Spectre's out of your league, Vakarian."

His expression closed up, mandibles pulled tight to his jaws. "Which. Spectre?"

Harkin shrugged. "Hell if I know. From what I hear, it doesn't matter who Fist _was_ working for any more."

"Fist's dead?"

Harkin shrugged again. "Someone tore in there, guns blazing. I got out just in time."

"Touching," Vakarian said dryly. "If you're not trying to buy Fist's favor, what are you doing here?"

"Seems like your quarian princess here is valuable to someone. I can always use the credits."

The two men held each other's gaze for a long moment. Tali fidgeted, irritated at the way the man talked about her like an object. Then Vakarian activated his omni-tool and spoke into it quietly.

A few minutes later the door opened on the biggest turian Tali had ever seen, half a head taller than Vakarian and broader. "You need something, Garrus?" he rumbled in a deep bass voice.

"Yeah. Thanks, sergeant." Vakarian stepped back and waved the man into the room. "Harkin here is under suspension, and showed up drunk at my office. He's not supposed to be on C-Sec facilities at the moment. Could you take him to lockup until he dries out?"

"Oh, come on," said Harkin.

The big turian ignored him. "With pleasure," he said, a glint in his yellow eyes. "Come with me, Harkin." One huge hand descended firmly on Harkin's shoulder.

The human squirmed, but was no match for the much larger turian. "You asshole, Vakarian," he snarled. "You know what? You are _exactly_ like your old man. Both of you, so high and mighty. You're not better than the rest of us." He continued ranting and struggling as the turian sergeant hauled him through the door, while Vakarian listened, apparently impassive.

#

Once the door had closed behind them, the quarian turned toward him, but Garrus held up a hand to forestall questions. "Wait a moment. I need to make a call or two."

She crossed her arms, but waited.

He tried Chellick first. It was the less essential of the two calls, but also the less painful to make. It took a moment for Chellick to pick up. "Garrus? What do you want?"

"Charming. Do you answer all your calls that way?"

Chellick's sigh was audible. "Sorry. I am not having a good day here."

"Is Fist dead?"

Another sigh. "Yeah. I can't regret it, but it really screws with my investigation."

"Do you have the killer?"

"Yeah. No mystery about that. The bounty hunter's standing right here. Going to be a headache to deal with, though."

Garrus made a sympathetic noise. "Bounty hunter? Who put a bounty on Fist?"

"The Shadow Broker, according to what the bounty hunter says."

Garrus frowned. Maybe Harkin had been telling the truth, for once. "I thought Fist worked for the Shadow Broker."

"I guess not any more."

"Any idea who Fist was actually working for?"

"Garrus, it's going to take days just to decrypt all the evidence from his office. I don't know, and I don't really have time to discuss it right now."

"Right, I'll talk to you later, then."

He took a breath, gritted his teeth, and made his second call. It was the right thing to do, he told himself. Tali's evidence connected to Eden Prime, which Aediem was obviously investigating, so he'd behave himself and go through channels.

The call connected almost immediately. "Garrus Vakarian," said Aediem in that warm, slightly condescending voice that always set Garrus's teeth on edge. "What can I do for you?"

He took another deep breath. "Listen, Junius, I came across something that's relevant to your investigation."

"There is no investigation."

Garrus rolled his eyes and tried to keep the irritation from his voice. "Come on, Junius. I know Pallin gave you a special assignment. I know it's confidential, so I'm assuming it's related to Eden Prime—"

Aediem cut him off. "No, I mean the investigation's over. Pallin's orders. I made my report. It's done."

"Done?" Garrus frowned. "Done when? Was any action taken?"

"Garrus. You know I can't reveal any details." The condescension had increased a few notches.

"Not even when? When did Pallin call you off?"

"This morning. Garrus. A word to the wise: don't—"

Garrus was sick to death of people offering him advice. He interrupted, "Thanks, Junius. That was all I needed to know."

He disconnected and took a moment to think. Tali'Zorah sat on the opposite side of his desk, arms crossed, tapping one foot on the floor. Pallin had canceled the investigation that morning. Fist had moved to acquire Tali and her data that afternoon. Whatever was going on—it wasn't over. Tali's evidence implicated Saren, so it went up to the highest levels. Maybe to the Council itself. And if Pallin had stopped the investigation... Garrus didn't know who to trust. He was suddenly glad he hadn't told Chellick about Tali.

"Can you use anything larger than a pistol?" he asked her.

She started, her head tipping back. "I... I've had a little practice with a shotgun."

He winced. Clumsy weapon. Imprecise. Inelegant. But... "I suppose that's better than nothing." He stood and opened his private weapons locker and found her a tolerable model. "Here."

She accepted the shotgun and strapped it on while he mounted his rifles to his own armor and made one more quick call. "Dr. Michel? Are you all right?"

"Garrus? I… yes, of course. What's the matter?"

"That matter we discussed earlier may be more urgent than I thought. Do you have somewhere safe to go for a while?"

He heard a sharp intake of breath. "Dr. Michel? Chloe?"

"Yes," she said, her voice higher-pitched than usual. "I have somewhere to go. Are you sure?"

"I think it's best for now," he said. "Call me if you have any trouble."

"I will," she said, and cut the line.

"What are you doing?" Tali asked, sounding puzzled. "What are _we_ doing?"

"We need to get you out of here." If he could only figure out a place that would be safe, while they figured out their next move...

"What? I thought you said it was safe here."

"Look." He turned around and looked at her intently, as if he could pierce that mask she wore. "Fist is dead. That's good, since he was after you. But Harkin says he was working for a Spectre. Let's assume it was Saren."

Her head tipped to the side. "Why should we assume that?"

"Because it's the worst-case scenario. _Saren_ will still want your evidence, since it incriminates him. And for some reason the Executor called off the investigation into Eden Prime. I don't know what's going on here, but I don't like it. For now, we should get out of here." He stood and reached up to remove the memory core from the surveillance camera. The less evidence that she'd been here, the better.

Tali stared up at him. "I thought you wanted me to report to appropriate authorities. You don't want to deal with this through C-Sec channels?"

Garrus shook his head. "Right now I don't know who we can trust and who might be on Saren's payroll. Until we figure out where we can safely turn in your data, we need to get you somewhere safe. As far away from here as possible, since you've been seen in this area."

Her fingers twined together. "Okay," she said quietly. "Where are we going?"

"Out of this ward," he said, his mind working. "The Citadel's a big place. If we can get some distance between you and your pursuers, we'll be better off. I might know a place we could stay the night while we figure out what to do next."

She nodded. "All right. Let's go."

#

Tali had to hustle to keep up with the turian's longer strides. She jogged along, trying to stay close as they left the C-Sec station and went out into the bustle of the ward. Oddly, no one seemed to give either of them more than a cursory glance. She felt terribly conspicuous; the two of them seemed awfully heavily armed for a populated area. She had the shotgun, as well as her own combat knife and pistol that they'd quizzed her endlessly about when she boarded the station, and Vakarian was carrying two rifles and a pistol.

He shortened his stride after a few minutes, and she was relieved that he gave her the space to catch up. "Where are we going?" she asked as she fell into step beside him.

"To get a car," he said shortly, eyes scanning the crowd around them. Tali looked around herself, nervously, not entirely sure what she was looking for. A little while later, Vakarian touched her elbow and said quietly, "Don't turn around, but we're being followed."

"What?" She fought the urge to turn around. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. They picked us up after we left the station. A turian and a krogan. _Don't_ turn around, just stay with me and follow my lead."

Tali sighed but complied. Their route took a number of twists and turns, went into a large apartment building and up several levels before going out onto the walkways of the Ward again. "Okay," he said after they'd walked another block. "I think we lost them."

"Good," she muttered, trying to shake the tension out of her shoulders. They kept going, taking a few more turns, until she saw a bank of skycars parked ahead of them. But she heard a crash behind her, and looked over her shoulder to see a krogan pounding toward them. She stifled a gasp and brought up her omni-tool.

Vakarian spotted him at the same time. She wasn't sure which of them executed the sabotage program first, but both their omni-tools sparked and crackled, and the gun in the krogan's hand whined in protest. Vakarian gave her a push in the direction of the cars. "Go, run," he said sharply, his assault rifle expanding in his hands.

She went, drawing the shotgun, but couldn't help looking back over her shoulder. Vakarian fired a burst at the krogan, then another, moving backwards after her. But the krogan was gaining on them. People were screaming and running, clearing his path. She turned and fired, hitting the krogan in his broad chest. He bellowed but still came at them.

"Just go!" Vakarian shouted.

"Which car?" she called back.

"Any car! It doesn't matter!"

She fired again, turned, and ran for the nearest car. She could hear Vakarian growling something behind her. She reached the car and slapped the control pad on the door, which opened quietly before her.

"Get in," Vakarian called. She turned and found him a short distance away, with the krogan almost on top of him. She tapped her omni-tool and overloaded the krogan's shields. Vakarian fired off a last burst, turned, and dashed toward her, pushing her bodily into the car. "I said, _get in_."

She tumbled into the passenger seat as he followed, slamming the door shut behind him. He hit something on his omni-tool and the car's instrument panel lit up; Vakarian grabbed the controls and the car lifted away, leaving their attacker behind. "I told you to run," he growled.

"I was trying to help," she snapped back.

"You could help by _following orders._"

"You're not in charge of me!" Tali shouted.

"Do you want help, or don't you?"

Tali glared at him and only then realized he was steering with one hand, while the other hand gripped his upper arm. Her eyes widened. "You're hurt."

"The krogan got off a lucky shot. Because we didn't get to the car fast enough," he said pointedly. "It's generally best to avoid letting a krogan close with you."

Tali's eyes dropped. "I'm sorry. I really was just trying to help. Are you… do we need to find a doctor?"

"It's a bad bruise, that's all. Medi-gel will take care of it." The car merged smoothly into the flow of traffic. After a moment, he said, "Listen, your instincts are good, and you keep your head when the shooting starts."

"I did have some training before I left the Migrant Fleet," she said, nettled.

"I can tell. But look, I have more combat experience, even if I spend too damned much time behind a desk these days. This will be a lot easier if you would trust me."

He might be right, but she'd been told over and over again how little she could trust anyone outside her own people. She sighed. "I barely know you. But I'll try."

"I guess I can't ask for more than that, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," he said after a moment.

She wound her fingers together in her lap. "Everyone calls me Tali."

"Then it's Garrus."

She nodded. "Okay. Garrus." She looked around and frowned. "Whose car is this, anyway?"

"It's just a skycab. I can use my C-Sec credentials to access any skycab as needed." He hesitated. "See if you can hack the cab's systems and erase any sign that we were here." As she brought up her omni-tool, he added, "The shooting as we left will attract C-Sec's attention, but that can't be helped now."

Tali nodded, engrossed in the hacking interface. The cab's systems were not secured well at all. It was very easy to simply delete the C-Sec ID and locations logged, but with just a little more work she could build an entire false history, editing the last three trips the cab had made. "That should do it," she said with satisfaction.

"What did you do?"

She told him and he laughed. "Clever."

She smiled, unexpectedly warmed by the compliment and the laughter. His opinion shouldn't matter to her, she told herself firmly. He was just some infuriating, arrogant turian _bosh'tet_.

Her smile faded, and she turned just enough that she could look at him, both hands now on the controls. Nobody took quarians seriously; it would have been a lot easier for him to dismiss her evidence, or send her to one of his superiors. She wondered what lay behind the sharp turian profile, and before she knew it, a question slipped out. "Why are you doing this?"

He spared her a sideways glance. "What?"

"Why are you doing this? You're taking on a lot of risk for me, and I don't understand why."

His mandibles flared out, then in, and his brow plates shifted. She didn't know what that expression meant. "Because you have evidence of a plot that reaches to the highest levels of our government? Because you need help? Because it's the right thing to do?"

For a moment Tali was ashamed of herself. She'd judged him on his species and occupation, just as other people judged her, and that wasn't fair. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome." He looked at her, head tilted to the side, and flared his mandibles into something she recognized as a smirk. "Besides, I doubt anyone but me _could_ get you out of this."

She sighed, loudly. On the other hand, he _was_ just as arrogant as she'd assumed.


	4. Chapter 4

"Where are we?" Tali asked as Garrus opened the door to a dimly lit apartment. The air inside was cool and still. As they entered, one light came on automatically, revealing a room with a table, a console, and two somewhat shabby couches. Further on was a tiny kitchen, and a door to the right presumably led to the rest of the apartment.

"A friend of mine lives here, but he's away from the Citadel at the moment. Family business."

Tali looked around. "Only one friend?" The space she could see would have been designated quarters for at least four people on the Flotilla. She tried not to be bothered by the waste of space.

"That's right," said Garrus. "He won't be back for at least six days, so we should be able to stay here for a while without anyone noticing."

Tali frowned. "But why are we here? Shouldn't we be... I don't know... doing something?"

Garrus sat down on the longer of the two couches. "How many times have you been shot at today? Three? I thought you might need some rest."

It was true. Her wounded side ached again, as if his words reminded her of the injury, and her legs felt weary from running.

He went on, "Besides, we need to think about what to do, and it's close to the Citadel's night cycle. If we need to contact someone, it'll be easier in the morning."

"All right," said Tali, and sat on the other couch. The moment she settled into the seat, all desire to move again fled from her body. She leaned back against the cushions with a sigh.

Laughing, Garrus rose and went into the kitchen. "Do you want anything to eat? It's all ready-to-eat meals, but it's better than nothing."

"My suit is stocked up on nutrient paste," she said, not wanting to make the effort to sterilize meals properly.

While eating, Garrus attempted to talk to her about people at C-Sec he thought might be safe to talk to, but most of the information passed right out of her head. Tali found herself dozing off before jerking herself back awake. The second time she did this, Garrus noticed and sighed. "Sorry. You must be exhausted. Let's just get some rest and think about this in the morning."

Tali nodded, grateful, as he extinguished the lights.

Though she fell asleep quickly, Tali woke some time later with a start. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what had happened, and that the day's ordeal had not been a dream. She still felt tired, but somehow she couldn't drift back into sleep. She tossed and turned, trying to find a more comfortable position on the couch, but her injury ached no matter what she did. She gave herself another dose of painkillers, and yet she still couldn't sleep. In the dark of the apartment, it was far too quiet. The silence seemed to press down on her. Tali fidgeted, wishing for the familiar hum of ship engines. Her overtired mind wouldn't stop racing, fretting over the situation she'd gotten herself into. Her eyes grew wet. She struggled not to cry, but it wasn't long before a choked sob escaped her throat and tears ran down her cheeks. She sniffled, waiting for the suit to begin the moisture reclamation process.

She heard a brief rustle in the darkness and then a touch on her arm. "Hey," said Garrus softly. "Tali, are you all right?"

She had thought he was asleep. "I can't sleep," she admitted. "I can't stop worrying about everything and it's... too quiet."

She heard a low chuckle. His hand was a reassuring weight on her arm. "Too quiet?"

"I grew up on ships. On the Flotilla, there is always noise, from the engines, the ventilation systems, you name it. If everything's quiet, there's a good chance something is wrong."

"I hadn't thought of it that way." She'd thought about activating her omni-tool for a bit of light, but his voice in the dark was surprisingly warm and soothing, and there was a little rustle as he shifted to sit nearer her. "I grew up on Palaven," he said. "It's hot. Lots of sun. The Citadel is very different. There's machinery that keeps it running, I suppose. Maintains the artificial gravity, the day-night cycle, and everything else. You're right, though, it's quiet machinery. I guess the Protheans must have been far ahead of us."

Tali thought he might be trying to distract her, but she was grateful for it anyway. She said, "I suppose so. I wonder what they were like."

"What made you go after a geth unit anyway? By yourself?"

"I'm on my Pilgrimage. Each of us leaves the Flotilla, seeking something of value to bring back. We offer it as a gift to the captain of the ship we hope to join, to show that we're worthy of joining a ship's crew. Of being considered an adult."

"Ah," he said. "That explains a lot."

"It does?"

"All the quarians I've seen on the Citadel seem... young. Inexperienced. But go on."

"Well. It doesn't have to be such a big thing, that you bring back, but for me, it's different. I really wanted to find something important, and we've hardly had any contact with the geth since we fled our homeworld."

"Why is it different for you?"

"Because of my father."

"What about him?"

She sighed, rolling over until she was facing him, even though she couldn't see him in the dark. It was hard to explain about Father. "My father, Rael'Zorah, he's one of the Admiralty Board. They're our highest military authority. And he's... well. He's kind of a legend, in the Migrant Fleet. He's done so much for our people, and I'm his only child, so... people are expecting important things from me." People like Father himself, though he hadn't really said so. And Admiral Gerrel and Auntie Raan. She couldn't bear to go back to the Fleet without something that _mattered_.

"Ah," Garrus said again. His hand tightened briefly on her arm and then relaxed, idly stroking against the smooth surface of her suit. It felt pleasant, even though the suit dampened sensation. "I can understand that."

"That... _bosh'tet_, Harkin, said something about your father?"

"Yeah." His hand stopped moving for a second, and the undertones of his voice shifted a little, to something she didn't know how to read. "He's kind of a legend himself. He's been in C-Sec a long time now. Detective, handled a lot of big cases. He's semi-retired now, at home on Palaven, or he might be able to help us. He and I don't always get along, but I know he wouldn't be involved in any kind of geth conspiracy."

"Is he the reason you're in C-Sec?"

His grip tensed again, ever so slightly. "Yeah. It's a long story." He moved his hand away, and, oddly, she found herself missing the pressure and slight warmth. "Are you feeling any better?"

Her tears had dried some time ago. "I am. Thank you. I'm sorry for waking you."

"You didn't. I was having a hard time falling asleep myself. It's a little cold in here."

She checked the readout on the inside of her visor. "Hm. It doesn't seem that cold, but I suppose the suit insulates me."

"Yeah, my armor would help some, but it's not comfortable to sleep in. Palaven has a hotter climate overall than most inhabitable planets, so turians prefer a higher temperature range than most species. Serves me right for choosing an empty apartment, I suppose."

"Oh. I could..." Tali fiddled for a moment with her suit controls. "I could program my suit to radiate heat. That might help, if we, um, slept close together." Her cheeks heated a little, but it wasn't as if there was really anything inappropriate about it, not with her in her suit.

There was a moment's pause before Garrus said, "I, ah... really? I don't, uh... want to make you uncomfortable."

"It's fine," she said firmly. "I'm offering." She adjusted the appropriate controls, and, before she could get too nervous to do it, she slid off her couch and shifted over to his. "Move over?"

He made room for her, silent and a little stiff, and Tali determinedly nestled herself into his side. If she was going to make herself into a sentient blanket, better that she do it as thoroughly as possible. "That, ah... does actually feel a lot better," he said after a little while.

"Good," she said. It was actually better for her, too. The rhythm of his breath and heart weren't the same as engines, but she still found the sound and gentle motion soothing. "Let's get some sleep, then."

#

Garrus surfaced from warm, pleasant dreams that slipped away as he blinked himself awake. He was lying somewhere... unfamiliar, encased in the familiar second skin of his underarmor... which he didn't usually wear to sleep in. And there was a comfortably warm, but entirely strange weight leaning on him. One of his arms was pinned down, and as he stretched a little his hand ran across a smooth, synthetic surface, and caught the edge of some heavily embroidered cloth, the texture soft against his skin. What?

His eyes opened all the way as he remembered where he was, what he was doing, and what—no, who—was resting on him. Tali. The quarian.

He was half on his side and she was pressed close against him. One of his arms curled around her back; one of hers was flung over his chest. Her helmeted head rested against his shoulder, surprisingly not uncomfortable in spite of the smooth round weight of it. She had one leg twined through his. He could feel the soft rise and fall of her chest. He became abruptly aware that, when he'd moved, his hand had shifted down to the curve of her hip. He froze. She didn't move, except for the steady motion of her breathing. Good. Maybe... ah, maybe it wasn't as suggestive an area as it was for a female turian. Maybe she couldn't really feel his touch through the suit anyway.

That thought brought a vague sense of disappointment that he firmly dismissed. Not the time or the place for that. Even if they were in a ludicrously intimate position, and there was no way he could move without disturbing her. He cleared his throat, but she didn't respond. He tried again. "Tali?"

She wriggled in her sleep, her thigh sliding between his legs in a way that was abruptly far _too_ intimate. She was under his protection, damn it, and she was asleep, and she had no idea what she was doing. "Tali," he said again, louder.

She stiffened. A moment later, she lifted her head and looked at him. This close, he could see the outlines of her nose and mouth through the faceplate, her eyes widened in an expression he was fairly sure was stricken. "Keelah," she said. "I'm—I'm sorry." She tried to push herself up, on the arm that had been lying under her, and moved her knee hastily so her thigh wasn't pressing against him any more, and somehow her hand slipped, he tried to steady her, and she ended up falling on top of him, chest to chest. He had one hand on her ribs and the other on her hip, and he could feel her breath quickening. Hell, his was quickening, too. He stared up into her golden eyes. "I'm—so sorry," she choked out.

"It's okay," he said.

"I didn't mean to—damn it all." She got her hands under her this time and pushed herself off of him, immediately turning her back to him and fiddling with something on her omni-tool.

He sat up. "Tali, it's really fine."

Her shoulders hunched, and she didn't answer. He sighed. She _had_ been asleep, and dreaming of... who knew what, really. He'd be a fool to take anything she'd done as signs of interest. Which was rather a pity. It was probably best to give her a minute to get her composure back. "I'm just going to go use the bathroom."

She nodded, her back still to him. "Okay."

By the time he finished washing up, he could hear a familiar urgent beeping coming from the other room, and Tali called, "Garrus? Your omni-tool is sounding."

He opened the door and she stepped back abruptly. "Yeah, I can hear it. I thought I had it turned off." He picked up the device and frowned. He had turned it off before, but the current caller was using a high-priority code that overrode his settings. There were not many people who had that code, and most of them were related to him. He had the brief, panicky thought that something might have gone wrong at home.

As soon as he answered, a voice roared, "Garrus Vakarian, where are you and what do you think you're doing?"

Garrus winced. No, there was nothing wrong at home, which was a relief, but Executor Pallin was approximately the last person he wanted to hear from right now. "Sir, I apologize for leaving early, but I had some urgent personal matters—" he said, doing his best to keep his tone level and suppress the anxious undercurrents that Pallin would immediately notice. For all his failings as a turian, which Pallin brought to his attention on a regular basis, Garrus was no better a liar than the average turian.

"Urgent personal matters that required you to remove surveillance footage from your office? That required you to _fire a military-grade weapon in a civilian neighborhood_?"

"Sir, I was acting in self-defense—"

"For an incident that you never reported. And you never went to your apartment last night."

Garrus blinked, confused. "You checked?"

"Of course I checked! What in the name of the Spirits do you expect me to tell your father about this stunt?"

Garrus rubbed his forehead with his free hand. All right, perhaps Pallin wasn't the _last_ person he wanted to hear from right now. "I don't expect you to tell him anything," he snapped.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm hardly going to lie to a friend of long standing just because his son is an irresponsible, trigger-happy—"

Garrus nearly cut off the call right then, but Tali was waving frantically at him. When he looked at her, trying to ignore the stream of invective coming out of his omni-tool, she held up hers, which was projecting the words CAN WE TRUST HIM? He shrugged. Tali sighed audibly and projected a new message: SO FIND OUT.

He muted the omni-tool for a moment so he could think. Pallin _was _a friend of his father's, and had never seemed to have any more use for Spectres than Dad had. The chances of him being an ally of Saren were relatively low. True, he had called off Aediem's investigation, which was suspicious, but it was always possible there were politics behind that decision. Politics were Pallin's weakness.

The plain fact was that they needed to find a way to get Tali's data to the Council, to someone who would take it seriously. No other power had the authority to act against Saren, or even to investigate his actions. Pallin had the clout to get the information into the right hands. Neither Garrus nor Tali did; they could expect to be stonewalled, put off, or simply ignored for a long time before even locating someone who would listen to the recording.

He turned the audio back on, to hear Pallin saying, "I can break you back to patrol officer. Customs screener. I can see that you are demoted to the lowest—"

"Executor," Garrus interrupted. "I know my father has counted you a friend for a long time. Can I trust you?"

There was a moment of absolute silence on the other end. When Pallin spoke again, his voice was tense with alarm. "Just what kind of trouble are you in, Garrus?"

"It's not—" His voice came out strained as he tried to decide how much to say. He couldn't be sure the line was secure. "I'd rather discuss this face to face, sir. Privately."

"You have to give me something, Garrus," said Pallin.

"Of course," Garrus said, responding to the tone of command almost automatically. "Let's say I've come across evidence that pertains to a… recently closed investigation."

After a moment, Pallin said, "How did you even know about that?"

"I asked a colleague a few questions. I put some pieces together. I'm a detective, sir." He added, with a note of bitterness, "A good one."

Pallin hmmed something. Could have been assent or skepticism. "All right. You have my attention."

They arranged a meeting place, a quiet part of Kithoi Ward, and a time a couple of hours away. Garrus cut the call.

"You decided to trust him," Tali said.

Garrus let out a breath. "To a point, yes. He's a friend of my father's, and that tells me something. I want to talk to him in person. Most turians aren't good liars. It's not hard for us to read each other, but it's easier to obscure things over the comm line."

"Huh," she said.

"What?"

"You said it's not hard for turians to read each other, but it's hard for anyone else to read you."

He gave her a look. "Says the woman whose people wear tinted masks everywhere they go."

She rubbed her hands together, her eyes narrowing. "That's not our fault. Quarian eyes don't adjust to brighter light as well as most species' do, so our helmets have to filter the ambient light."

"Well, it's also not turians' fault that other species can't hear our subharmonics properly."

"Hm," she said.

"Or read our expressions." He flicked his mandibles out. "In short, it's not our fault the rest of you are squishy and only have one voice box."

"I suppose you think that makes you superior."

He shrugged. "No, it's just the way things are."

"Hm," she said again.

His mandibles flexed in irritation. If she had something to say, she should just say it. "What?"

"I was just wondering if I could alter my audio processors to interpret your subharmonics and output an approximation." She spread her hands. "Probably not necessary, but an interesting technical problem. Anyway. What do we need before this meeting?"


	5. Chapter 5

Tali's thoughts were scattered as she scurried along in Garrus's wake.

He still tended to walk a little too fast for her. Besides that, foot traffic generally moved out of his way, only to ignore her, so she was constantly getting blocked by other people. No matter how much she hurried, he was continually getting ahead and then having to pause or slow down so she could catch up. It was irritating, even though she knew it wasn't intentional on his part, he was just… nearly vibrating with contained energy, alert and watchful to their surroundings.

She knew she ought to be doing something similar herself. They were making their way through the ward on foot to their meeting place. She should be looking for pursuers or making sure no one was scanning them. She should be thinking about the upcoming meeting, and whether to trust this Executor Pallin, but her mind, and her eyes, kept wandering back to her companion.

She couldn't help noticing things. Like how he moved with more grace and assurance than other turians, or how tall and broad-shouldered he was. Or how his standard black and blue C-Sec armor nonetheless set off his silvery plates perfectly, or how the broad blue lines of his colony marks were a nice contrast to that coloring, and brought out his pale blue eyes.

Which were looking at her, now, as he paused for her to catch up. She felt a flush rising over her cheeks and was glad he couldn't see her blushing.

As she drew near, he said, "Sorry I keep moving too quickly for you."

She was about to say something tart, but his pleasant dual-toned drawl reminded her of how she'd awakened that morning and her face felt hotter. "It's all right," she said instead.

He slowed down, nonetheless, so she could keep pace with him. She looked sideways at his profile and found him looking back, one mandible tipping out in a sly turian smile. Her blush deepened. It was nothing more than proximity, she told herself firmly; he had been surprisingly comfortable to lean on considering his hard and angular physique, warm and solid and strong…

Her imagination started drifting off, and she firmly reined it in. Keelah. Her ancestors had to be laughing at her. He was turian, one of the enforcers of the Council's unjust restrictions on quarians. He was a… a temporary ally. Nothing more. Not even a friend, really. She had meant it when she offered to help him stay warm, but she hadn't meant… she hadn't thought they'd wake up quite so intimately entangled. Once they figured out what to do with this data, she'd probably never even see him again.

The idea was oddly disappointing. She gritted her teeth in frustration at herself. He was infuriating, she told herself firmly. Arrogant. Domineering. Far too full of himself. She needed to focus, and not be foolish about this.

It was hard to think too harshly of him when he was quietly walking beside her, but her irritation blossomed anew when he wrapped one hand around her arm and steered her around a corner, down a narrow, well-populated walkway, and then abruptly around another corner, into an even narrower alley full of nothing but crates and rubbish.

"What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Quiet."

She attempted to lean forward, but he pressed her back against the wall with an arm across her chest. He had his back firmly against the wall himself, but the bulk of the armor around his chest and cowl meant that she couldn't easily see past him. She fidgeted, all too aware of the pressure of his arm and the occasional brush of his hip against her side. She listened, hard, and heard footsteps, but she couldn't tell what might be significant in the noise of the crowd.

Finally his stance relaxed, and Tali shook herself free. "What was that about?" she whispered.

"Thought someone was following us."

"I couldn't see a thing, you know."

His eyes narrowed and his brow plates pulled down. "Well, I was trying to keep anyone from seeing _you_. They were looking for a quarian, and they might not know I'm with you."

"Oh." When he put it that way, it seemed sensible enough. "So are we going to follow whoever that was ourselves?"

He shook his head. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, and I don't think we have time, anyway."

Tali sighed. "Fine. Let's go."

Their meeting place was a spot that had maybe once been a garden. It had seen better days, Tali thought; it seemed overgrown and ill-tended. She couldn't help wondering how much of the foliage was edible. Its dilapidated state did mean that they were screened from the public walkways by vine-covered trellises, and there was no one else there.

Well, almost no one. There was a turian waiting for them, dressed in dark clothing, with folded arms and a closed-up expression. Garrus hesitated as he came into view, touching her elbow. "Can you make sure no one's monitoring our meeting?"

"Of course." She brought up her omni-tool and began scanning for anomalous signals in the area. "I think he's recording, but I'm not seeing anything else," she reported after a moment.

Garrus nodded. "That's fine, then." He hesitated a moment more before rolling his shoulders and striding into the garden. Tali followed along, keeping an eye on her scanner.

The older turian gave them both a hard look. "Garrus. I hope you have a good explanation for this."

"I do."

"And your companion is?"

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," she introduced herself, and added, not quite as an afterthought, "sir."

"Hm." Pallin returned his attention to Garrus. "Well? Let's have it."

"It's about the Eden Prime attack, sir."

"You hinted as much, before." Pallin's face was unreadable, his posture upright and guarded. "Information pertaining to the attack is classified, as I'm sure you know."

"Why did you call off Aediem's investigation?" Garrus asked in a rush.

Pallin's expression didn't betray much, but his eyes narrowed. "That is also classified, Vakarian. Stop prying into matters that don't concern you. If you don't actually have anything, this conversation is over." He took a step back, starting to turn and leave.

"Wait." Pallin paused and Garrus hesitated for a moment, before bursting out, "Tali has evidence implicating Saren Arterius in the attack."

Pallin turned back to face them. Tali thought he didn't seem surprised, but it was hard to tell; his whole demeanor was controlled and unrevealing. "Saren Arterius."

"That's right. That's why I asked if I could trust you, sir. If there's a problem reaching this high into Council circles—"

Pallin flicked a mandible, and Garrus stopped short. "I need to see this evidence," he said, in an even tone.

Tali cleared her throat. "It's audio, sir."

"Play it."

She frowned, but did as she was told. The three of them listened to the brief recording, the words quite familiar to her by now.

"How can you be certain this is genuine?" asked Pallin, in a completely neutral tone.

"It's an original recording extracted from a geth data core," said Tali. "I don't know how much expertise you have in authenticating geth material." She was unable to keep a note of sarcasm from creeping into her voice. Pallin fixed her with a cold look, but she held her head high.

"Have you run this recording through a vocal matching program?"

"Yes," said Garrus. "The match came back with 62% confidence."

"You know that's inadmissible as evidence," he said evenly.

"I do know, sir, but Tali's been attacked three times now. Further investigation of those attacks might yield additional evidence."

"And why is it you didn't bring her in for protective custody?"

"Because I didn't know who to trust at C-Sec," Garrus snapped. "Protective custody is worse than useless if you can't trust the guards."

The two turians stared at each other for a long moment. Tali found her fingers winding together, anxiously, and stilled them. Then Pallin said, "The evidence would be inadmissible, by itself. As part of a collection of circumstantial evidence, however, it's damaging."

Tali's shoulders relaxed. Garrus breathed out a long exhale, softly. "If there's other evidence, then why close the investigation?"

Pallin shook his head impatiently. "Council orders. The humans botched their case. Not enough evidence to support their rather loud allegations. Their colony was attacked by geth. That's serious. A Spectre is dead. That's serious, too. But the Council is understandably reluctant to believe that a Spectre is behind the attack, or that one Spectre would murder another, particularly when Kryik and Arterius are known to have worked well together for a long time."

"The rumors were true, then," Garrus said quietly.

Pallin nodded. "Some of them. Understand, I'm telling you two things you have no business knowing. I can bring this evidence to the Council. I may be able to sway some opinions. On the other hand, it may seem so serendipitous as to be a forgery."

Tali wasn't sure whether to take that as an insult to her integrity, or a compliment to her skills. Garrus simply nodded. Pallin continued, "It's good that this comes from a source unconnected to the humans. You _don't_ have any connection to the humans, do you?" He turned sharp eyes on Tali.

"No, I don't. I mean, a human doctor treated me, but I never told her anything about this."

"Good. Keep it that way. You have a safe bolt hole?"

"Yeah," said Garrus.

"Stay there. Stay out of sight." Pallin held out a hand. "I'm going to need that evidence."

Tali hesitated. They'd prepared for this; she had copies of the recording, both on her person and stashed elsewhere for safekeeping, but she couldn't help being reluctant to hand over the original. She did so grudgingly.

"Good," Pallin gave them a short nod. "I'll be in touch."

#

"Are you sure we can trust your Executor Pallin?" Tali asked, for the sixth or seventh time. Garrus had lost count.

"No," he said, staring at the ceiling, "but I'm as sure as I can be. I don't see that we had much alternative. He has access to the Council that we don't."

"Maybe we should have approached the humans first."

Garrus clenched his teeth. They had returned to their shelter without incident, and Tali had fiddled with the environmental controls to make the place a little warmer, which he supposed was for the best. Several hours had passed since their meeting with Pallin, and they'd had no further communication from him. He could understand Tali's anxiety. Still, he hated second-guessing. Once you had made a decision, he didn't see much point in trying to reverse it. He was trying to cope with the waiting by going into sniper mode, that state of calm awareness that he knew he'd once been able to switch into. Most of his colleagues at C-Sec would have laughed at the idea that he could be that patient, he knew; his reputation there was for impatience, recklessness, and stubbornness. C-Sec hadn't provided enough opportunities for that kind of patience and focus. His skills were rusty. He ought to spend more time at the shooting range, even if it was only a substitute for the real thing.

It was difficult to attain the appropriate mental state at all when Tali kept talking to him. "Dealing with the Council might be taking a while," he said instead of begging her to be quiet.

Her sigh seemed loud in the empty apartment. He tried another tack. "That suit you're wearing doesn't seem to offer you that much protection. Can't you switch into something heavier?"

"It's actually more durable than it looks—" She launched into an explanation of the workings of the envirosuit, and how armor designed for quarians could be made to fit over the suit and had to be carefully fitted so it didn't interfere with the suit's ports and cables. Garrus flicked on the musical stream from his visor and turned it up loud enough to drown out most of what she was saying. _Ahh_. He'd always enjoyed music. He found almost anything with strong rhythms soothing, no matter how loud the music was. Something about the beat helped him feel steady and focused. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and let the sound wash over him.

The music in his ear suddenly went out with a discordant screech and was replaced by shrill, tuneless warbling. His eyes shot open to see Tali standing in front of him, close enough that he could see her golden eyes glaring at him. "Hey!" he protested.

"You _bosh'tet_! You asked me a question and then you weren't even listening to me!"

"So you decided you'd invade my privacy? Thanks very much. What am I listening to now, anyway?" He stabbed at the controls frantically. The pitch of the singing grated at his eardrums, vibrating unpleasantly through his skull, and none of the controls responded at all. He growled in frustration.

Tali pushed something on her omni-tool and the noise faded. "It's a traditional quarian song."

"Oh." Garrus restrained himself from saying something rude. Barely.

"You had pretty good encryption on there," she offered. "It took me a little while to hack it."

He frowned. "Thanks, I guess. I'm not technically helpless, you know." His technical training had focused on weapons, but he was better than average with his omni-tool, too.

"No, I didn't know, because you'll hardly even talk to me."

He repressed a sigh. "Tali... look, we have some time to wait, and I know it's tiresome, but I don't really want to spend the time second-guessing our choices."

"I was just trying to make conversation. We could talk about something else," Tali said plaintively.

"Like what?"

She flung her arms out. "I don't know! I thought you wanted to know about my suit. Or you could talk! Tell me all about your important military experiences, Officer!"

He glared back at her. "Yeah. Because you're going to be such a respectful audience."

"Oh, and drowning me out with music is so respectful."

She had a point, but he didn't feel like conceding it. There was a chilly silence for a few minutes. Then Tali grumbled, "Fine. If you didn't want to talk, you could have just said so, you know. I'll just see if there's anything interesting on the Citadel news feeds."

"You do that," he retorted, wishing he could come up with a better response. Tali fired up her omni-tool and curled up on the couch, pointedly turning away from him. Garrus turned the music back on and closed his eyes again.

"Garrus. Garrus!"

He blinked. It was a while later—he might even have dozed off for a bit—and Tali was jostling his arm, her voice frantic. "What?" he demanded, sitting up and flicking the music off.

Her hand on his arm was trembling. "Listen!" She switched her omni-tool so it was outputting audio through the speaker instead of directly into her suit.

_Breaking news: Citadel Security reports the murder of Executor Venari Pallin, found shot dead in his office a short time ago. Executor Pallin was a long-time veteran of C-Sec..._

Garrus reached out to turn off the feed as the announcer began listing Pallin's accomplishments, his mind racing to figure out what they should do now. Tali pushed his hand away. "No, you need to hear this."

_... C-Sec has not released full details of the crime, but confirms that they are seeking for questioning C-Sec Officer Garrus Vakarian..._

Garrus completely failed to hear whatever came next. "Shit," he whispered, staring up at Tali.


	6. Chapter 6

A quarian might have gone pale. Garrus's eyes were wide and his mandibles slightly quivering. "Shit. Shit." He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with one hand. "I—"

"What do you want to do?" Tali asked.

Garrus didn't seem to hear her. "I shouldn't have—this has to be about the evidence. If I hadn't talked to him, brought him into this—"

Tali frowned. "I thought you didn't like second-guessing our choices."

His eyes flew open. "I didn't expect our choices to lead to his _death_." He rose and paced, long strides across the room. "I had my differences with him, and he could be as stubborn and narrow-minded as any turian, but he was my superior and I worked with him for years. And he was my father's friend. I've known him for a long time." He stopped short. "Spirits. My father."

"I'm sorry," Tali said quietly.

He shook his head. "You were right, it won't do any good to revisit the past now. But... damn." He went back to pacing.

Tali fidgeted. She regretted the Executor's death, but that regret was outweighed by worry about their current situation. "Garrus... what about the evidence?"

He kept pacing, and, for a moment, she thought he wasn't going to answer. But, eventually, he said, "Either the killer took it, or Pallin put it somewhere."

"Which one do you think is more likely?"

He shook his head. "There's no point in guessing. We need more information."

She twisted her hands together. "They think you're involved somehow."

"Or at least, they think I know something. That's not too surprising, given my departure yesterday and his call this morning." He ran a hand over his fringe. "Pallin and I had exchanged words a few times lately. It's not illogical to conclude I had a grudge."

"I can vouch for your whereabouts," Tali ventured.

Garrus nodded. "Yeah. That's something. If they take your testimony seriously, which they may not."

Tali bit her lip. "Because I'm a quarian."

"That, and you're a newcomer to the station." He hesitated. "We need to know what's happening with the investigation. I don't see a good way to get that except to talk to some of my colleagues."

"Won't they have to turn you in?"

"Yes. They might not, if I can convince them I wasn't involved."

"This doesn't sound very safe," Tali ventured cautiously.

"You're right, it's risky," said Garrus. "But I don't see a good alternative right now."

"Well. Let's at least try to reroute the signal from your omni-tool so they can't track us."

He nodded. "Thanks. Listen, Tali... I'm sorry about earlier. I should have been more patient."

She blinked, startled by the apology. "I'm not very good at waiting, either. I'm used to keeping busy. I'm sorry too."

#

Once they'd made Garrus's omni-tool as secure as they could (and he thought Tali could teach a thing or two to C-Sec's top encryptions specialists), he fired it up and checked his messages.

Two from C-Sec's automated personnel system. Probably one of those came when he didn't check in for his shift that morning, and the other was notifying him to report for interrogation.

One from his father. He grimaced. He really wasn't prepared to hear what his father thought about his possible involvement in the murder of Venari Pallin.

And an assortment from his colleagues. One each from Ridgefield and Lamont and a few other people. Four from Chellick. Well. At times like this, it was nice to know who your friends were. He started Chellick's first message.

"_Garrus. Where are you? I want to talk to you about Fist and Chora's Den. Ping me when you get in."_

That must have been before the murder; Chellick sounded calm and businesslike. He selected the second message.

"_All hell is breaking loose around here, Vakarian. You haven't been in all day. Report in or call me, damn it."_

He hit the next one, morbidly interested in the increasing stress in his colleague's voice.

"_Garrus. What the fuck is going on?_"

And the final message:

_"Garrus. The circumstantial evidence is not good for you. I know you and Pallin didn't always get along, but please tell me you had nothing to do with this. Call me."_

"Are you going to call him?" Tali asked.

"I think it's our best shot at getting an inside view of the investigation. Chellick's generally been a good friend. I think he'll hear me out." _I hope_, he added to himself silently.

Tali merely nodded.

Garrus steeled himself and placed the call. "Hey, Chellick."

There was a pause. Then Chellick replied, in a deliberately light and casual voice, "Oh, hello. How are you?"

"I take it you're not alone."

"You'd be right, of course. Do you need something?"

"I need to know what's going on. I didn't do it," Garrus added, with all the force and conviction he could muster.

"That's what I thought." Chellick's voice was shaded with relief. "Listen, I get off shift in a couple of hours. Can we talk about it at our old place? You know the one."

Garrus grimaced. Back when he and Chellick had been newly appointed to Investigation, they'd found a section of the maintenance tunnels close to C-Sec headquarters. A quiet area that wasn't hard to get to, but one that wasn't under their superiors' perpetual scrutiny. They'd met there periodically to compare notes about the cases they were working on and the examinations they were preparing for, as well as to commiserate about the unreasonable expectations junior investigators were subjected to. Over time, they'd been promoted and assigned to different areas, and they'd needed the outlet less, but Garrus still remembered how to get there. Assuming the Keepers hadn't rearranged the entire maintenance area, of course. At least he and Tali could get there without passing through many public spaces. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I'll see you there."

#

"This place is so _strange_," said Tali.

To minimize their exposure to public view, Garrus had led her to a hatch not far from their hideout, and now she followed him through one of the oddest areas she'd ever seen. She'd been expecting maintenance tunnels of some kind: utilitarian, probably narrow, designed for functionality. These tunnels were very different. At certain points, they were narrow enough that it was a tight fit for Garrus to go through, but most of the time, they were wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side. The tunnels were not always straight; rather, they slanted or bent or curved at odd angles and unexpected places. There was very little illumination, except for their omni-tools and the blue glow of Garrus's visor. Signs or labels of any kind were unhelpfully absent.

"Mmm?" Garrus was looking back and forth from the junction ahead of them to some sort of map he'd brought up on his omni-tool.

"These are the strangest maintenance tunnels I've ever seen," Tali repeated.

"This way," Garrus decided, leading them off toward the right, and added, "Well, hardly anyone comes down here."

"Not even the station's maintenance workers? The Citadel is so big, there must be a lot of them." Tali knew, quite well, the necessity of maintaining the complex systems protecting living beings from the vacuum of space. Every quarian spent some time on maintenance duty, to develop an understanding of basic systems and an appreciation for the importance of the work. Tali had had an aptitude for it, so she'd logged more hours than most.

"The Keepers do most of that sort of work," Garrus said matter-of-factly. "People sometimes hide out down here. Runaway kids. Criminals. I got familiar with them when I was assigned to track black marketeering. These tunnels are good for moving illegal goods."

"Keepers?" asked Tali warily.

"Yeah, didn't you know, they're... oh, there's one now." Garrus stepped to the side as a creature approached, and Tali backed against the wall to let it by.

She'd seen these things before on the Citadel—there had been one near her meeting with Fist's men—but she hadn't paid them much attention until now. It walked on four slender legs, and had two pairs of manipulating limbs in front of it. It swung its small head toward them as it passed, regarding them with bulbous eyes that made her skin crawl. It was a giant _bug_. Rannoch had no insect life of its own, but the Migrant Fleet had seen its share of pests, insects and spiders with their too many scuttling legs. "That— that's a Keeper?"

"That's right," Garrus replied, not seeming to notice her alarm.

She watched the Keeper go past, the pincers on its manipulators opening and shutting as it stepped along precisely, and shuddered. "Ugh. I've never seen a species like that before."

"They're unique to the Citadel. The Protheans left them here as caretakers, I guess, or at least, they were here when the asari found the place."

"They're creepy. All those _legs_," Tali muttered, shivering all over again as they set out on their way.

Garrus stopped short when they reached a new intersection and brought up his map again. "Damn. They must have rearranged the tunnels again."

"Rearranged the tunnels?"

"The Keepers do that from time to time. No one really knows why."

Tali frowned. "Wait, you don't know anything about them, and you let them maintain the essential systems of the station?"

"Well, yeah. Let's try... this way." They started walking again. After a moment, Garrus said, "You know, when you put it like that, it doesn't seem like a very good idea."

"I should say not." Tali tried not to think about the fact that the station's life support systems were run by those _things_.

"I mean, they're pretty harmless, as long as you don't interfere with them, but they do move things around without any obvious reason sometimes."

"_Pretty_ harmless?" Tali looked back over her shoulder, her skin prickling, but there weren't any Keepers in sight.

"Occasionally people do disappear, and—" He probably couldn't really see the expression on her face, but he glanced toward her and broke off anyway. "Um, it probably has nothing to do with the Keepers."

"Right," Tali said. She wasn't convinced, but she didn't want to scream in horror right now. They continued in silence.

#

There were several wrong turns and some backtracking before they reached the meeting point. By that time, Tali was convinced that the entire population of the Citadel must be fools, going about their lives without ever wondering about the underpinnings that kept the station together.

"All right," Garrus said, interrupting her train of thought. "I'll meet Chellick out here. You stay out of sight. Around the corner there should do."

Tali frowned up at him. "Why?"

He shrugged and took up a casual pose, leaning one hip and shoulder against the wall, arms crossed. "If he attacks me, you're my backup."

She sighed. She hated being excluded from the conversation, but she recognized the wisdom of the approach. "Fine."

She settled into her sheltered position and activated her omni-tool. With a little work, she found she could tap into his visor again and project the visual feed into her own suit. At least that way she could see what was going on. "I don't know how you can look so relaxed," she grumbled.

"It's an art," he replied. "Sshh."

She rolled her eyes but waited quietly.

After some time, Tali heard footsteps approaching. She straightened, flexing her legs so she could move quickly if necessary. Another turian in C-Sec armor approached, stopped, and stared at Garrus with hard green eyes. "I hope you didn't have anything to do with this murder, Vakarian."

#

"I didn't," said Garrus sharply, pushing himself off the wall. Chellick's hands were clenched into fists, he noted. He kept his own stance loose. "You know me better than that, Chellick."

Chellick's eyes narrowed as he held his stare. "Then what? You've had your issues with him, you didn't report to work today, and we know he called you."

"I had some sensitive information for him. He said he'd take care of it. I think it got him killed, instead."

"So you did meet with him," said the other detective slowly.

Garrus nodded, keeping his eyes on Chellick. "I did. Outside of C-Sec. I haven't been at HQ all day. Surveillance cams should verify that."

Chellick looked at Garrus closely before sighing and running his hands over his fringe. "The cameras went out during the murder. Everything from the main entrance to Pallin's office, for about an hour. Plenty of time for someone technically skilled to slip in and out."

"What happened?" Garrus asked quietly.

"He was shot in his office. Point-blank range. Two passing officers in the corridor heard the shot, opened the door, and interrupted a masked and hooded turian in C-Sec armor rummaging through the office. There was a confrontation, but the intruder escaped. Pallin was already dead."

Garrus considered the information. "They didn't have any better description than that? Turians are over half the force, and that's assuming the killer didn't steal the armor."

"No. That's all we have. And, like I said, no surveillance footage. We don't know how he got in or out. Listen, Garrus, we need to clear your name somehow—"

"Who's in charge of the investigation?" Garrus interrupted.

"Aediem."

Garrus sighed. "It had to be him, didn't it?"

Chellick's mandibles flared in irritation. "This is serious. It didn't take him long to come up with your name."

"Well, he's not a complete idiot. I'm really a very obvious suspect."

"Do you have any kind of alibi at all?" Chellick asked desperately.

"Yeah, I do. If they'll accept it. But that's not the real issue."

Chellick's mandibles snapped shut. His teeth grated together. "Fine. I'll play along. What's the real issue?"

"The real issue is, did the killer get the item he wanted, or didn't he?"

Chellick shook his head. "There were only seconds between the shot and the office door opening. I doubt he had time."

"So whatever he was looking for is presumably still on-site."

"Then we need to get in there and recover it!" cried Tali.

Garrus sighed, exasperated, as Chellick stared past him. He didn't need to look to know that she had come out of cover behind him. "I thought I told you to stay out of sight."

"Well, it doesn't seem like he's going to attack you now," Tali argued.

"Who's this?" Chellick demanded.

Garrus glanced over his shoulder. "Chellick, meet Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. My alibi."

Chellick looked from one to the other. "You're dating a quarian?"

Garrus blinked at the false assumption and looked back at Tali, who was now staring at the floor. Her heart rate had gone up a notch. Hm. Interesting. "No. We were just together all day."

Chellick gave him a skeptical look. "All day?" He wasn't quite leering, but his subharmonics were definitely suggestive.

"Not like that," Garrus grumbled. "Protective custody."

Chellick looked at Tali again. "If you say so," he said, with the same undertone.

Tali sighed loudly. "You're wasting time. We need to find that data."

"What data?" asked Chellick, with a wary expression.

Garrus gave him a sharp look. "Do you really want to know what someone probably killed Pallin for?"

Chellick opened and shut his mouth a few times before finally saying, "Well. Maybe not. If there's something to be found in the office, though, it may come up during our investigation."

Tali and Garrus both shook their heads. "No time," said Garrus.

Tali added, "We need to recover it ourselves. The killer could still be in C-Sec."

"He could even be one of the investigating detectives," Garrus pointed out.

Chellick looked a bit ill at that thought. "I don't know how you're going to do it. The office is a crime scene. We've got it locked down."

"That's a surmountable obstacle," Garrus said. "Has anything been removed yet?"

The other turian sighed. "Wonderful. I hate it when you get _that_ look in your eye. No, nothing but the body itself. But it's going to be difficult just getting you two in, you know. Everyone in C-Sec knows we're looking for you, Garrus."

He shrugged. "Then I think I should turn myself in."

Tali gasped. "No. No, you can't."

"Why not?" Garrus said. "It gets me in. It'll attract attention, and you can slip in while everyone is focused on me."

"You won't be able to move freely," said Chellick. "Aediem will want to question you right away. You might end up in a holding cell."

"I can think of several ways to get out, especially with Tali's help."

Chellick shook his head. "I don't even want to know."

"No!" said Tali again, stepping forward to Garrus's side. "That's not the point. Are you forgetting that your Executor Pallin went into C-Sec, and that somebody murdered him there?"

"Of course I haven't forgotten. That's exactly why we need to recover that data."

"And what's to prevent the same thing from happening to you?" Tali shouted. Both turians turned to stare at her. She cleared her throat and continued in a lower voice. "We don't know who the murderer was. This Aediem may think it was you, but we know it wasn't. What we do know is that whoever it was was able to walk into Pallin's office without triggering any alarms and shoot him. If you're a prisoner, wouldn't it be even easier to attack you?"

The two men just kept staring at her. Tali growled and stamped her foot. "Do not stand there looking at me as though I'm an idiot! I'm the only one of us talking sense."

Garrus noted that her heart rate and body temperature were both elevated. He smirked at her. "Why, Tali, I didn't know you cared."

She flung up her hands. "You are _impossible_!"

Garrus turned to face her and put on his most soothing manner. "Listen. It'll be fine. I'll turn myself in, but I won't stay in custody long. You'll slip in. Chellick will help you. Right?" He turned and gave the other turian a challenging look.

"Fine," said Chellick after a moment. "If anyone asks, I'll say I'm questioning her about an unrelated matter."

"Great." Garrus turned his attention back to Tali. "So I'll break out at my first opportunity, or you'll come find me. We'll go to the office and search it until we find the data. Then we just have to deliver it ourselves."

"Deliver it where?" Tali asked, just as her omni-tool sounded an alert. She looked down. "Keelah. Someone's coming."

Chellick swore. "They might have tracked me."

Garrus immediately began detaching his weapons from his armor. "Then it's a good thing you were here talking me into coming in quietly. How much time, Tali?"

"A minute or two," she said. "But Garrus, you can't—"

"Get into cover. Chellick, look out for her." He finished disarming himself, adding his sidearm to his other weapons. "Tali, if anything happens to me—"

To his surprise, she grabbed his arm. Her grip was stronger than her slight frame would imply. "Don't. You just said it would be fine!"

He looked down into her tinted mask. He could almost see the outline of her nose and mouth. He gave her a smile. "It will be. But just in case, if anything happens... recover the data yourself, and take it to the human embassy."

She shook her head. "Garrus..."

"There's no time. Go, or they'll arrest you, too."

She stared at him a moment longer and made a kind of strangled noise. He wasn't sure whether it was a curse in her own language, or something else. Then she turned and fled into the dark tunnels they'd come from, disappearing around the bend.


	7. Chapter 7

Tali crouched in the dark corridor, her eyes locked on the feed from Garrus's visor. She'd managed to set up an audio link, too, the sound funneled directly into her helmet, so she heard the footsteps of the approaching C-Sec unit before they appeared. Two turians, a human, and an asari, all in familiar blue and black armor. They were armed, but as they drew near, the asari held up a hand, and her three companions stopped. "Chellick," she said. "Vakarian. I'm assuming you know why we're here. Let's not make this difficult."

"No need for difficult, Ianra," Garrus returned, calm and easy. "I had my omni-tool off most of the day. Chellick and I were just discussing how to come in without causing too much of a scene."

"Uh-huh," the asari said. Tali thought that she seemed skeptical, but willing to accept their word. She glanced down at the neatly stacked weapons. "Looks like you're making it easy on us. Good. I'd rather not haul a fellow officer in in cuffs."

"That's convenient," said Garrus. "I'd rather not be cuffed."

Ianra grinned, a quick flash of white teeth in her blue-violet face. "Come on, then. Glad to see you being cooperative, for once."

They moved out. Garrus was surrounded by the four officers, but not restrained; Chellick followed along, just behind the group. Tali waited for several minutes, and then followed them herself, moving as quietly as she could. The six of them made a fair amount of noise, which was good, since she had to rely on them to show her which way to go. A Keeper passed her in the corridor, and she eyed it nervously, but it seemed oblivious to her presence.

Aside from the footsteps she was following and the tap-tap of the Keeper's feet, it was very quiet in the passage. Tali shivered. She had been alone for much of her Pilgrimage; even surrounded by crowds, no one knew her or spoke to her, not like on the Flotilla. She'd only had company for the last two days, but now she felt even more alone than before.

It was a relief when the weird darkness of the Keeper tunnels gave way to a more ordinary-looking maintenance tunnel, with real, motion-activated lighting, and a normal console tucked to the side. Continuing, Tali easily found her way to a nondescript door. She hesitated a moment before cautiously opening it.

The door opened up on a kind of square. On the side across from Tali was a ramp leading up to a large, blocky building, and there she saw Garrus and the others going up to the entrance. The door opened before they reached it, however. An imposing-looking turian in C-Sec uniform came out, flanked by two heavily armed officers. "Lieutenant Mao," he said in a resonant voice, making Tali jump as it reached her ear. "I see you've located our suspect."

"That's correct, Detective Aediem," said the asari easily.

"And why is it you chose not to restrain the suspect?"

Even from across the square, Tali could see the asari, Chellick, and the other officers with them stiffen. Garrus himself somehow managed to remain relaxed.

"Vakarian is a fellow officer only wanted for questioning," the asari said, in brusque tones. "He accompanied us willingly, and I saw no need for further measures."

"Hm." The turian looked Garrus over. "Confiscate his omni-tool. And that thing," he said with a dismissive wave at Garrus's head. After a moment, the asari nodded, and the two turians with her followed the orders. Garrus made no move to resist. Tali grumbled to herself as the visor, removed, automatically deactivated, cutting off her connection. There seemed to be a few more words exchanged, which she couldn't hear, and then they all marched into the building, out of sight.

Now she had to get herself in, and quickly. "This was a terrible plan," Tali muttered to herself, moving hurriedly around the edge of the square. Crossing the open space seemed a bit too conspicuous. She looked warily around as she went, but although there were a good number of people, none of them seemed to pay her much attention. She hesitated as she approached the doors. There were plenty of legitimate reasons for her presence, but she preferred to avoid notice, and there were guards posted at the entrance.

Tali was rescued when a large hanar came bobbing along behind a turian officer. She could almost hear the turian's teeth grinding as the hanar said, its synthesized voice rather plaintive, "This one protests the arbitrary measures of the worthy officer. This one was merely spreading the word of the Enkindlers—"

"Without a permit. For the seventh time," snarled the turian.

The guards at the entrance turned to watch as the hanar continued to complain, and Tali quietly slipped through the doors.

#

Garrus was still wearing his standard-issue C-Sec armor, but he felt nearly naked with no omni-tool, no visor, and no weapons. As they entered HQ, every eye turned toward them. He kept his own concentration fixed on Aediem and his guards. The two Aediem had brought with him were... stolid. Aediem's men. They'd do as they were told. Ianra Mao and the three she'd brought with her to arrest him were a lot more on edge. Garrus had always liked Ianra; she was a smart, no-nonsense officer. Chellick, trailing her, was only barely managing to conceal his own discomfort. It seemed odd, somehow, not to see Tali's lavender hood bobbing in the corner of his field of vision. Garrus kept finding himself looking for her, her absence nagging at him. He hoped she'd be okay. They hadn't had time to make a real plan, so she'd have to improvise. He was reasonably confident that she _could_ improvise, but breaking into and out of C-Sec was a lot to take on.

If this thing went poorly, they'd both have a list of criminal charges to their names, even if they managed to clear themselves of Pallin's murder. Maybe he should have listened to that message from his father, after all. It might be the last time the old man would be willing to speak to him.

Aediem stopped the party at the entrance to an interrogation room. "Lieutenant Mao, you and your men are dismissed," he said in that calm, resonant voice.

Ianra hesitated. "Sir?"

"I'll take things from here."

She frowned, but said, "Very well, sir. Come on," she added to her team, and the four of them turned to go.

Aediem added, "Chellick. I believe you have duties elsewhere."

Garrus turned his head to glance at Chellick as well. Chellick needed to find Tali and help her, not stand around here with him. Chellick glanced from Garrus to Aediem and back, nodded, and departed, following after the others.

Once they'd all disappeared down the corridor, Aediem set the remaining two officers to guard the door, and ushered Garrus inside.

Garrus had spent plenty of time in interrogation rooms during his years in C-Sec.

Just not on this side of the table.

He took his seat before Aediem could tell him to do so. A tiny victory, perhaps. Aediem settled himself on the other side, still and composed. A model turian, indeed. Garrus glanced up at the camera in the ceiling to verify that the active light was on. Junius intended to make this a civil interrogation, then, at least for the moment.

"What do you know about the murder of Venari Pallin?" Aediem asked, in calm, measured tones.

It wasn't the approach Garrus would have taken himself, but it was a good enough place to start. "Very little," he replied, maintaining eye contact. "What the news reported. I was as surprised as anyone."

Aediem's mandibles flicked out and in once. "You didn't report in for your shift today. Where have you been?"

There was little point in hiding it now. "For the most part, at an apartment in Kithoi Ward. I can provide the address."

Aediem made a note on his datapad. "And were you alone?"

"No. I was accompanied by Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

Aediem looked up from the pad. "A quarian?"

"That's correct."

His face shifted into an expression of distaste. "You abandoned your duties to dally with a quarian?"

"It hardly matters what we were doing, does it?" Garrus countered. "Only the alibi itself is relevant."

Aediem's mandibles flexed again. "I thought better of you, Vakarian."

Garrus waited. Junius Aediem had only a few years' seniority over him. If he thought he was going to cow Garrus by acting like a disappointed parent, he was sadly mistaken. Garrus had _years_ of experience facing down a disappointed parent.

Aediem leaned forward slightly. "You have no response to that?"

"I wasn't aware you were asking a question," Garrus replied, leaning back casually.

Aediem snorted. "Very well. Do you know where this Tali'Zorah is now?"

With any luck, she was in Pallin's office. "No," Garrus replied, truthfully.

"And you were with this quarian at the time of the murder?"

Garrus smiled. "I don't know at what time the murder occurred. I was with her all day, however, so I suppose I must have been with her at the time of the murder."

Aediem made another note on the pad and set it down, folding his hands together and looking at Garrus intently. "I confess I'm surprised you're such a skilled liar."

Garrus's mandibles dropped in surprise. Most turians were terrible at lying, bad enough that few tried, even those guilty of crimes. Garrus was no better than average, and had said nothing but truth throughout the session so far. He'd expected harder questions at this point, queries that would require him to skirt the truth more carefully. He hadn't expected this. "I'm not lying."

Aediem snorted. "Ridiculous. You really expect me to believe you would jeopardize your career for some liaison with a quarian? You're nothing if not ambitious."

Ambition wasn't quite it, Garrus thought, but then, Junius had never understood him. But the detective continued. "I've seen how you look at me. I know you want my cases. The Eden Prime investigation, you wanted that."

Garrus kept careful control of his expression.

"You would have botched it, of course. You never can do as you're told. But I ask myself, which is more likely, that Garrus Vakarian would shirk duty all day for some quarian, or that he succumbed to his envy and resentment, walked into the Executor's office and _shot him_ in the _face_, and now is attempting to _lie about it like barefaced scum_."

Aediem was on his feet by that point, his voice rising throughout the diatribe. He leaned over the table with mandibles spread wide, showing his teeth. Blatant intimidation tactics; Garrus had used them himself, on occasion, and he wasn't going to give in to them now. He said, "Actually, I shirk duty regularly. Ask my father if you don't believe me."

_That was probably unwise_, he thought as Aediem snarled and lunged across the table. He sunk the talons of one hand into Garrus's shoulder, deliberately digging into the weak spots in the armor with enough pressure to send pain shooting down Garrus's arm. "You're a disgrace to your name and your father's reputation," he hissed. "You _should_ be barefaced. You don't deserve to wear those marks."

In spite of the tingling pain in his shoulder and the numbness spreading down his arm, Garrus felt a thrill of satisfaction. He'd never realized before that Aediem disliked Garrus just as much as Garrus detested him. Besides that, Junius Aediem had just crossed a line, using physical force on an interrogation subject. For all the times that Aediem had pontificated about policy and procedure, he would break the rules himself, if he were angry enough. "Detective," he said as mildly as he could manage, "in the absence of real evidence, I suggest you get a grip on yourself."

Aediem blinked, once, twice. Garrus deliberately looked up at the surveillance camera. Following Garrus's gaze, Aediem abruptly stood upright, releasing his hold. Garrus let one mandible drift out in a half-smile as the senior detective collected himself. "I won't let Pallin's murder go unpunished," Aediem warned, his voice cold.

"I wouldn't expect you to," Garrus returned. "I wasn't involved, however. I think you'll find more fruitful avenues of inquiry elsewhere."

Aediem exhaled, hard. "Don't go anywhere. I'll have more questions for you later," he said, picked up his datapad, and left.

Left alone, Garrus glanced around the room. There was nothing much here, really. The table, the chairs, bare walls, the surveillance camera, its little eye still pointed at him. He waited, trying to look calm, running through various scenarios for escape in his head.

The camera's light flickered and died. He blinked at it for a moment, then rose to his feet and knocked at the door. He couldn't pass up this opportunity. After a second, the door opened a crack. One of Aediem's guards looked suspiciously at him. "What do you want?"

"A glass of water? I'll cool my heels until Junius comes back, but can't you get me something?"

The guard looked uncomfortable. "I'll see what I can do."

The door closed and Garrus waited, poised. It opened again, wider, and the guard leaned in with a cup. "Here."

"Hey, thanks," Garrus said, reaching out, but instead of taking the glass out of the man's hand, he grabbed his arm and yanked. The guard stumbled in, surprised. Garrus kept pulling and slammed his armored knee into the man's forehead. He groaned, staggered but not out, and Garrus followed up with a second blow that dropped him. He seized the downed guard's omni-tool just as the second guard burst into the room and, with a quick command, overheated the remaining guard's pistol. That took away the guard's advantage, and his hand-to-hand skills were no match for Garrus's own. He was able to get a chokehold long enough to take the other guard down. "Sorry," he said, looking down at their prone forms, "but there's too much at stake." Quickly he stripped them both of their weapons and omni-tools, cuffed them with their own handcuffs, and used the omni-tool to reset the cuffs' keycodes so they couldn't get themselves out easily. He slipped one omni-tool on his wrist and tucked the other away, clipped the pistols to his armor, and left the interrogation room, locking the door behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

Inside C-Sec, Tali looked around in confusion. The area bustled with people, nearly all of them in uniform, and she couldn't see the group she was looking for anywhere. She tried to remember how they had gone to and from Garrus's office the last time she'd been here, but she wasn't even sure they'd used this entrance. Tali walked forward hesitantly, peering down the several corridors that opened off this area.

"Excuse me? Miss? Do you need assistance?"

Tali jumped, spinning to face a young human woman with chin-length brown hair. "Do you need some help? Are you here to report a crime?" she asked.

"Um, no. I was looking for... Detective Chellick?"

The human nodded, checking her omni-tool. "His office is down that corridor," she said, giving Tali directions. Tali thanked her, genuinely grateful, and the young woman nodded again before returning to her duties.

The corridors Tali traveled through all looked alike, lined with similar offices. Several officers gave her searching looks as she went by; Tali squared her shoulders and ignored them, trying to look as though she belonged. She didn't think it was a very good pretense, but no one stopped her before she reached what she thought was the right office door and knocked quietly.

The door shot open to reveal Chellick on the other side, mandibles twitching. "There you are," he said, loud enough for the passing officer in the corridor to hear, and all but yanked her into the room.

Once the door was closed, he sagged against it. "I don't know why I let Garrus talk me into this," he grumbled.

"I don't know, either," Tali snapped. "But I might have been able to talk him out of this stupid plan if _you_ hadn't let yourself be tracked to the meeting place."

"So you're saying this is my fault, is that it?"

"Isn't it?"

Chellick regarded her with sharp green eyes for a long moment. "You seem awfully invested in his well-being."

Tali's face grew hot. "I haven't had anyone else to rely on in this mess. Of course I want him to be safe. How do I get to him?"

Chellick shook his head. "Not yet. Junius took him straight into interrogation. You can wait here, or you can go search the crime scene yourself. I can't believe I'm going along with this," he muttered to himself.

Tali looked up as something suddenly occurred to her. "You shut down the camera in here, didn't you?"

"Of course I did," he grumbled back. "Do you think I'm incompetent?"

She didn't bother answering that question. He _had_ let himself be tracked, after all. "I suppose I'd better search the office," she decided. The sooner she could find that evidence and get them both out of C-Sec, the better.

"I'll tell you where it is, but I'm not going to help you search," said Chellick. "That's a step too far."

"Fine," she said, her mind racing. She'd have to disable the surveillance system again, get the door open, find the data core, and get out. "Give me the schematics, and I won't be bothering you any more."

#

The further Tali got into C-Sec, the more nervous she became. Chellick had given her the building schematics, so she knew how to get to Pallin's office and the general area where she could expect to find Garrus. They were in the same area, though on different levels. It was one of her few strokes of luck. Tali tried to walk through the corridors confidently, but she felt rather small and out of place as blue-and-black-clad officers strode past her. Turian, salarian, asari, human; no quarians at all.

So far, no one had questioned her presence. The pair of turians walking toward her now seemed to be looking at her suspiciously, though. Tali made a swift turn down a different passage, hoping that the move looked purposeful and normal. She risked a quick glance back over her shoulder, but they weren't following her.

This corridor, in fact, was empty of other people. She checked her schematic. Yes, she could get to the Executor's office without returning to the main corridor. Better yet, there was a console located not far away. She made her way to it and synced her omni-tool to the console. It wasn't hard to hack her way into the system. It probably hadn't been hard for the killer, either, she noted distantly. She wanted to make things a little more confusing than he had, though. She accessed the surveillance system and quietly crafted a program that would knock it out. Not all at once, though; sections would go down at random, for randomized durations, and meanwhile other sections would send false data to the central monitors. With any luck, it would take their techs quite a while to notice that the section she had in mind stayed shut down while the rest of C-Sec's surveillance systems went haywire. For good measure, she set up some timed alarms that should draw people away from key areas.

She sent her program into the system and did what she could to cover her tracks. Then she checked the building plan again and marched down the hallway as if she had a right to be there.

#

There wasn't much further to go, she kept telling herself. Out of this elevator, another few turns, and she'd be at the office. The elevator doors opened, and Tali stepped out boldly, moved down the corridor...

"Excuse me, miss? This is a restricted area."

She suppressed a sigh and turned toward the officer who was moving to intercept her. Human male, with short light hair and a round, pinkish face. She blinked at him and asked, pretending ignorance, "What?"

He had an assault rifle strapped to his back, but made no move to draw it. "You're not supposed to be here," he said patiently. "This level is restricted to C-Sec personnel."

"Oh." She looked down at herself, as if surprised not to see a uniform. "I guess I took a wrong turn."

"Yeah, this has been a weird day—" He suddenly stopped himself. His fingers twitched. "Why are you carrying so many weapons?"

Tali took a couple of steps back, unobtrusively reaching toward her omni-tool, trying desperately to come up with some kind of excuse. "It's a dangerous galaxy?"

"I'm going to have to ask you to—"

Before he could finish his sentence, Tali set off an attack that overheated his rifle, turned, and ran. She ducked around the next corner, hearing the officer cursing and stumbling behind her. Fingers flying over her omni-tool, she activated a series of programs. She heard the human's voice: "This is Officer Lang, requesting backup. There's an intruder—damn it!" Tali smiled to herself. Good. Her jamming program must be working. Still hurrying down the hallway, she glanced at the inactive cameras over her head. The officer's heavy footsteps followed her. "Stop!" he called. "Put your hands—" He broke off and yelped as the nearest camera exploded in a shower of sparks, sending bits of plastic and glass over half the hallway. Tali broke into a full-on sprint, sliding around the next bend and dashing down the corridor to her target. Every electronic object in her path exploded behind her, a series of timed detonations designed to slow down her pursuer. She hoped, without injuring him too badly. The sound of swearing behind her told her that he was still alive and conscious.

It was easy to identify the door she was looking for. Its lock glowed bright red, and when she skidded to a stop in front of it and tried to access the lock, a warning popped up that the area was a restricted crime scene, entrance only permitted to qualified members of the investigative team. Tali started her hacking program, praying to all her ancestors that she had time before that officer made it around the corner and had a clear shot at her with that rifle. She could hear the thud of his steps, as well as the _pop_ of the explosions still dogging him.

There was a moment's silence, and Tali knew, on instinct, that he'd reached the corner and had the presence of mind to scan around it rather than simply pelting after her. She crouched, making herself as small as she could, leaning against the door so the protruding edge of the doorway gave her the tiniest bit of cover. "Come on, come on," she whispered at her omni-tool, as the program mindlessly burrowed through the door's layers of encryption, and fumbled for her shotgun. She couldn't use her omni-tool to sabotage weapons without slowing down the hack.

The rifle fired. In spite of herself, she let out a shriek and ducked, half turning to fire the shotgun blindly toward the corner. She flattened herself against the door again as he fired another burst. She thought at first that the shots missed her, but the alert flashing on the inside of her helmet told her that she had a suit breach, upper left arm. The suit seals immediately locked into place, but she was already exposed. Damn it, damn it, damn it. She fired another unaimed shotgun blast.

When the doors opened, she all but fell into the office. Tali twisted onto her hands and knees and scrambled in, ignoring the burning pain in her arm, so the doors could shut behind her. Once in, she worked frantically to reset the lock, slapping her best encryption program on it. Finally assured that she was safe, at least for a few minutes, she took a deep breath and checked her suit's diagnostics.

The shot was just a graze, but it was enough to tear the suit and the outer layer of skin. Tali bit her lip. An exposed wound could be a serious problem, even with the suit's section seals in place. She was already on regular doses of antibiotics for the older wound—which now twinged painfully—but she gave herself an extra dose anyway. She needed to stay lucid and functional long enough to retrieve the data and take it to the humans. And rescue Garrus, if necessary.

Decision made, Tali climbed to her feet and looked around. It was a spacious, well-appointed office. There was a large desk, with one chair behind it and two in front of it. There was a holoterminal against one wall, an assortment of potted plants standing about, and a severe, abstract painting beside the desk. The wall opposite the door was covered with a heavy drape. Peering behind it, Tali found a row of windows, and left the drape in place. Off to the side was a tiny washroom, spare and clean. Now she just had to figure out where in the office Pallin might have concealed the data core.

She approached the desk first, wrinkling her nose as she observed the spray of blood on the desk and chair, dried to an indigo tone. There was no help for it, though, so she began opening the desk drawers.

#

Garrus knew the way to Pallin's office well enough. He was almost disappointed that no one challenged him, considering that everyone in C-Sec should have known he'd been wanted for questioning. Then again, he was still in armor and carrying a regulation sidearm, so he blended in. It was even possible that people simply thought he'd been released. If they really thought that, they didn't know Aediem very well.

It occurred to him when he was halfway to his destination that there was a fairly good chance people didn't recognize him without the visor, and that really _was_ disappointing. Police officers should do better than that.

It would be nice to have it back. It would be nice to have his personal omni-tool, too, which was customized and of much higher quality than the standard-issue one he was using. Not to mention his personally maintained, custom modded weapons. All of his possessions would have been tagged, boxed, and stored... come to think of it... He activated the omni-tool and flipped through the menus until he could access the list of items logged in in the last few hours. It didn't take him long to find the appropriate tag number or to decide that the detour was worth it. The relevant storage room was hardly out of his way.

As he made his way through the halls, Garrus noticed that the surveillance cameras kept flicking on and off. At one point, static came screeching over the omni-tool's official communications channel—and everybody in the vicinity cringed as their omni-tools spat static as well. Garrus made a show of frowning at his tool, but inside he felt practically gleeful. This was undoubtedly Tali's handiwork.

The storage room was staffed by a skinny salarian who blinked across the counter at him, taking in the rank insignia on his armor. "What can I do for you, detective?"

"I'm here to pick up item 5846K20," Garrus said with authority.

"Certainly, sir." The salarian retreated into the storage vault. Garrus drummed his fingers against the counter. He could hardly believe he was getting away with this. The salarian returned a few minutes later, lugging the two rifles along with a box presumably containing the rest of Garrus's property. "Let me just check this out to... um..." The salarian blinked several times. "These are... your own possessions, Detective Vakarian."

Hm. Perhaps he hadn't gotten away with it just yet. "That's right," he said, speaking slowly and clearly, as if to an idiot. "That would be why I'm retrieving them."

The salarian practically squirmed. Rookie. "Sir, it's just... I thought you were wanted for questioning. Sir."

Garrus put both hands on the counter and leaned forward. "If I were still wanted for questioning, would I be here?" He waited. He really hoped he wasn't going to have to lunge over the counter to disable the kid.

"I... I suppose not, sir," said the salarian at last, and pushed the box and the rifles across to him.

"Thank you." He clipped the guns into place on his armor, affixed the omni-tool to his wrist, and departed with a nod. Halfway down the next corridor, he dropped the two pistols and omni-tools he'd taken from the guards into a waste chute. Garrus slipped the visor into a compartment of his armor for now; it felt odd not to wear it, but if he was right that its absence was making people overlook him, he'd be a fool not to take advantage of that.

He couldn't help making a note of all the security holes he was observing. Assuming he didn't end up in prison for this whole mess, he should be sure to tell the next Executor. The thought came and went, and Garrus felt a pang of remorse, even as he tried not to feel too responsible for the death of the last Executor.

He deliberately took a path up to the Executor's office that wasn't heavily used. On the way there, he heard an alarm blare at one end of the building, leading to a scramble of people in that direction. Garrus hoped the chaos would keep Junius from realizing he wasn't where he was supposed to be.

Getting off the elevator on the correct floor, Garrus was surprised to find no one in sight. He turned down the corridor, cautiously, and moved quietly until he heard a crunch under his boot. He paused. There was a dusting of broken plastic and glass on the floor. He looked up, puzzled, to see that the surveillance camera was gone, leaving only a socket where it had attached to the ceiling. Huh.

He kept going, noting the path of electronic destruction along the way, until he happened across a young human officer standing in the hallway with his assault rifle drawn. It wasn't aimed at anything in particular, and the young man kept the muzzle pointed away as he turned toward Garrus. "Oh, sir, I'm so glad you're here."

"What's the situation?" Garrus asked, playing along.

"Quarian female, sir, she's broken into the crime scene and locked herself in. I took a few shots at her, but I'm not sure I hit."

Garrus stiffened, eyeing the rifle. It was a terrible model, so chances were he hadn't hit Tali. If he had, though... Garrus's fingers curled around his pistol.

The young officer continued, "Communications are jammed, I wasn't sure my call got through at all." He frowned. "No offense, sir, but I was hoping for more backup. Are you the only one here?"

Garrus scratched the side of his neck. "In a manner of speaking," he said, and clocked the man with the butt of the pistol held in his other hand. The officer staggered sideways, groaning. Garrus wrested the rifle out of his grip, yanked him around and handcuffed him. "Sorry," he said, improvising a gag with omni-gel. He dropped the human and stepped back, watching for a moment to make sure he couldn't free himself easily, before proceeding down the hallway.

The lock on Pallin's door glowed red. Garrus tried a standard C-Sec protocol on it, which had no effect at all. Tali must have used one of her own programs on it. He hesitated for a moment before risking calling her up. "Tali?"

It took a moment before she responded. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Open the door, will you? I'm right outside."

"Oh... give me a moment. Most of my processing power is scanning for the data."

"Fine, I'll just wait in the hallway where anybody could see me," he said, with an exaggerated sigh, and then something slammed hard into the nerve cluster behind his left mandible.

Garrus reeled. Pain coursed through his neck, shoulder, and arm, followed by numbness and tingling, leaving his left arm useless for the moment. His attacker took advantage of this state to grab him by the fringe, using the leverage gained to slam his head into the corner of the doorframe. Garrus twisted around, trying to hit with his right elbow, but couldn't land more than a glancing blow. Meanwhile, the attacker kicked the back of his knee, forcing him halfway down to the ground.

#

Tali rolled her eyes at Garrus's complaining and then heard an odd _thud_ over the comm. She frowned. "Garrus?"

Something heavy slammed against the doors to the office. Tali jumped and reached for her pistol, only to drop it as all the electronics flickered and both of her guns overheated. She flinched again as there was another heavy thump against the door. Biting her lip, she drew her knife, her only working weapon, from its sheath on her leg, and deactivated the door's lock.

Garrus was grappling with another, larger turian. Tali's first impression was simply of straining bodies in blue and black, locked together, until she realized that the stranger had a grip on Garrus from behind. They lost their balance as the doors opened, tumbling sideways into the office. Tali didn't dare hesitate; she took advantage of the momentary disorientation to slash at the attacker's unprotected neck.

There was a spray of blue blood and a harsh scream. Garrus rolled away. The attacker turned on Tali, raking at her left arm with his talons. She cried out as he tore at her injured arm, and tried to make another strike with her knife, but the turian was now close enough to overwhelm her with his greater size and strength. He seized her right wrist, forcing the knife away from him.

Tali heard a shot. She closed her eyes as more blue sprayed to the side. The grip on her wrist slackened and she pulled away, watching as the attacker fell silently to the floor.

"Headshot," Garrus said, sounding shaky. "Hard to miss at that range."

For a moment Tali couldn't bring herself to speak. Her faceplate was smeared with blood. There was blood on her knife, and her arm throbbed. She looked over at Garrus, crouched on one knee with his pistol in his hand. A trickle of blood ran down his face, too. It was the same color as his colony marks, a part of her mind noticed. "Are you all right?" she asked. Her voice sounded thin and distant.

#

Garrus frowned. "I think I should be asking you that." His head hurt, his arm was tingling as it came back to life, and his knee might be strained, but Tali had a sort of shocky demeanor that made him really wish he could see her face properly.

"I feel..." She dropped the knife, and touched her left arm gingerly. "I feel a little lightheaded."

"Head down," he told her. She obeyed, while Garrus fumbled the visor out of his armor and into place so he could check her vitals. He frowned again at the heart rate and body temperature readings and headed into the washroom. Glancing at himself in the mirror, he wiped the blood from his own face and returned to where Tali sat so he could clean the outside of her helmet.

"Thanks," she said after a moment. She looked up at him, and he could see the outline of her nose and cheeks and mouth through the tinted faceplate. Her bright eyes blinked. "You're really all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. Not completely the truth, but he could move and fight if he had to.

"Who was that?"

Garrus rose and moved to examine to the attacker. The turian was a bareface, one Garrus didn't recognize. "At a guess, the man who murdered Pallin," he said, activating the dead man's omni-tool. A number of hacking programs showed up on the list of recently used files, adding weight to his supposition. The messages folder was thoroughly encrypted; it would take some time to get through. Somehow Garrus suspected there would be messages from Saren Arterius in there somewhere.

Tali sighed. "Of course. He must have come back for the data."

Now that her pulse had stabilized, her body temperature was significantly elevated. Garrus noted how she was holding her left arm. "Are you hurt?"

"It's just a little suit tear."

He didn't like the sound of that. "Let me see?"

Wordlessly, Tali let him examine her arm. It was a fairly bad tear, in fact, and he could see the graze from a bullet as well as the slashes of talons on her smooth skin, still bleeding sluggishly. He applied some medi-gel from his own supply, watching her eyes sharply. "Getting exposed like this could make you sick, right?" Or kill her, he thought, but he wasn't going to raise the subject unless she did.

"Yes, but I took medication. I should be okay for a little while. Right now we need to find that data."

Garrus nodded. He wasn't going to stop worrying, but if she wanted to tough it out, he'd respect that. He offered Tali a hand up, which she took, her grip firm.

"I designed a program to scan for the data core. It has a distinctive geth signature," she said, checking her omni-tool. "Okay, good. The attack didn't disrupt the program, now I just have to run it..." Her omni-tool began to ping quietly, faster or slower as she moved around the room. She finally found the data core in the washroom, wrapped in white plastic and attached to the underside of the sink. She played the recording again to make sure it was intact.

"Okay, now what?" she asked, turning to Garrus.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I think our best chance is to take it to the humans, now."

Tali looked up at him uncertainly. "If that man out there is the murderer, then that should clear you, shouldn't it?"

"He's dead, and it will take a while to evaluate that evidence," Garrus said. "Besides..." He hesitated. "The lead investigator doesn't like me much."

"That's hard to imagine," she said.

He narrowed his eyes, hearing the irony in her voice, but continued, "I still don't know who in C-Sec is trustworthy. I hoped we could avoid politics by going through Pallin, but I don't see another good choice now." He sighed. "I shouldn't have involved him in the first place."

"It's not your fault," she said. "You thought it would help."

"Right," said Garrus, but he couldn't shake the feeling of responsibility.


	9. Chapter 9

"All right," Tali said. "Now that we have the data, I guess we should move as quickly as we can."

"Yeah. They'll realize I'm not still in the interrogation room sooner or later." Garrus brought up the C-Sec schematics on his omni-tool. "All right. The C-Sec complex is huge. If we take this route here, we'll come out fairly close to the embassy section of the Presidium. We'll have to commandeer a vehicle, but it will be a short trip."

Tali nodded. "Okay. It wouldn't be better to get out of the building quickly and travel outside of C-Sec?"

Garrus hesitated. "I don't think it would be any faster, and it might endanger civilians."

"Okay, then. Let's go."

She started toward the door, but Garrus caught her good arm for a moment and looked at her carefully. "Are you going to be all right with this trip?"

Tali already felt too warm. The fever was coming on. She could see the blinking indicators showing that the suit was feeding her antibiotics and antipyretics. Garrus's expression suggested that he knew she was ill. Biometric monitoring on the visor, probably. "I don't see that I have a choice."

"Then let's try to make this quick."

She could thoroughly agree with that sentiment.

They left the office, corpse and all, and headed back toward the elevator. As they approached the corner, Tali saw the prone form of the officer who'd shot at her on the floor. "Garrus... did you leave him like that?"

"I cuffed him, but otherwise... damn it." He sped up and Tali followed. Her breath caught as they drew near. The young human was clearly dead, his throat cut. "Damn it," Garrus repeated, fists clenching.

"This isn't your fault, either," she said.

"Maybe not, but I made it possible." He shook his head, gathering himself with visible effort. "Let's go."

They rode the elevator down several levels in silence. When the doors opened, Tali followed Garrus's lead. She had the route marked on her own omni-tool, too, but her head was beginning to ache, and her mouth felt dry. This was the beginning of a bad reaction, she could tell, and she could only hope that she wouldn't collapse or make some terrible mistake that would put them both in jeopardy. They could hear distant alarms from time to time, so her programs still seemed to be running in C-Sec's systems.

The route they took seemed relatively lightly populated. They did pass a few officers: a turian questioning a volus, a couple of asari in conversation. Each time, Garrus took Tali's arm, as if escorting a prisoner or a witness. The first time, she flinched as he touched her injured arm. "Sorry," he murmured, shifting his grip lower.

"It's all right," she whispered back. There was something comforting about the pressure on her arm, now that it didn't hurt any more.

They were halfway to the garage when they heard a faint whine. The consoles, door locks, and surveillance cameras within view all cycled off, and then back on. Tali glanced up at Garrus. "They must have cleared my programs from the system," she said.

"I know," he replied, just as quietly, and without saying another word, they moved faster. The corridor ended in a T-intersection. They turned to the right, to reach the elevator that would take them down to the garage. Behind them, there was a shout: "Stop! Both of you! And surrender! You're under arrest!"

"Run," Garrus said, giving Tali a push on the shoulder. She broke into a halting run, glancing back over her shoulder, to find him just behind her, tweaking something on his omni-tool. Further back, she could see the turian detective who had taken him in for questioning, flanked by several more officers. They had their weapons drawn. Tali ran faster.

She reached the elevator at the end of the hall moments after the first shots, panting and feeling dizzy. The elevator wouldn't respond to her calls; they must have shut down the controls. Grimly, she crouched down and began to hack her way into the control system. Garrus caught up with her a minute later. "I'm working on it," she said.

"Work fast. I tweaked my armor shielding, but it won't hold forever."

"Can't you do anything to slow them down?" she asked, breathless.

"I'd rather not shoot at my colleagues if I can help it," he said.

"This is your last chance to surrender," called the turian. It sounded as though he was moving closer.

"Under arrest for what?" Garrus called back. "I didn't kill Pallin."

The other growled. "Still lying. The path you've left through C-Sec argues against you."

"I didn't kill your guards at the interrogation room, did I?"

There was a moment of hesitation. "No."

"Why wouldn't I, if I'm as bad as you think? Use your head, Junius."

"I don't need advice from you on how to do my job, Vakarian," said the other detective coldly. A spray of bullets followed.

"I've got it!" Tali exclaimed. Garrus shoved her into the elevator before the doors were fully opened, following rapidly. She pressed herself to the wall of the elevator car, hacking into the controls. The door slammed shut and they started down, faster than the elevator's usual speed.

Garrus pulled out his omni-tool. "What are you doing?" Tali asked.

"Thought maybe I should let the humans know we're coming." A moment later, he said, "This is C-Sec Officer Garrus Vakarian. I need to speak to the ambassador. No, I don't have an appointment. I'm afraid it's urgent."

The elevator suddenly stopped moving, the mechanism groaning.

"Tali?" Garrus asked in a strained voice.

"I'm working on it," she said, trying to get back into the system.

He said into the omni-tool, "Yes, I said urgent. Tell the ambassador I have evidence regarding the attack on Eden Prime."

Tali got the elevator re-started, with a jolt.

Garrus sighed deeply. "Tell him I have evidence linking the attack to Spectre Saren Arterius. Yes, I thought he would want to know, too. I'm on my way to the embassy from C-Sec, but there, ah, may be some pursuit."

The elevator settled to a stop and the doors opened. Tali started to step out, only to yelp and fling herself back into the car as warning shots rattled over her head.

"Yes," said Garrus into the comm, "some assistance would be useful, if possible." To Tali, he added, "We're going to have to run for it. Just... don't aim too carefully, okay?"

She leaned out into the doorway, set off a sabotage attack, and readied her shotgun. "Okay," she said, forcing down the feeling of dizziness.

Together, they sprinted for the nearest vehicle. There were no shots at first, as the weapons Tali had just overheated cooled off. Then several rifles fired. Tali ducked and fired back without looking. She felt out of breath already. The nearest car seemed very far away. She stumbled and Garrus hauled her back to her feet, yanking her behind a concrete pillar. "You all right?" he asked.

Her head felt like it was on fire. "I... just need to catch my breath..."

He leaned out and fired a burst from his assault rifle, deliberately aimed high, she thought. "We don't have a lot of time here."

"I know." She punched in another dose of drugs for herself and took two slow, deep breaths. "Okay, let's go."

Inside, she knew the drugs wouldn't take effect quickly enough, and she was right. The next minutes passed in something of a haze. She nearly ran into the car they were aiming at; her fingers fumbled as she tried to hack the lock, but she got it open, and they both piled in.

"Can you drive?" Garrus asked, and Tali realized that she'd ended up in the driver's seat.

"I think so," she said, starting it up. She'd flown shuttles and small craft on many occasions, and a skycar's controls were designed to be simple to use. She was a little worried about her fever and dizziness, but the medication should be kicking in soon, and it would take time to change places. A couple of shots hit the rear of the car as she lifted off, making it veer as she aimed at the brightly-lit exit. That wasn't hard to see at all. "I just don't know where we're going."

#

Garrus flinched as they narrowly missed the side of the exit. "I'm sending coordinates to the car's nav computer." That done, he leaned out the window and fired behind them, to discourage pursuers.

Garrus wasn't sure if Tali was naturally this bad a driver, or if it was just the fever—he was well aware she was getting sicker by the moment—but the ride to the embassy, though short, was one of the worst of his life. Tali had no sense of the Citadel's normal traffic lanes or patterns, and overcorrected wildly whenever he called for a change in direction. At least it was making their car difficult to hit, he reflected. He fired off a few bursts of suppressing fire, trying his best to avoid civilian traffic. What were a few more charges to his record, anyway? Garrus tried to quiet the part of his mind that was listing the laws and regulations he'd broken in the last few days, and the other things that he hadn't done but might get charged with anyway. That part sounded remarkably like his father. When he spotted their destination, he called, "Down! Down! Set it down there!"

"What, here?" she asked, jerking the skycar toward one of the Presidium lakes.

"No, not _here_, right _there_!" he shouted.

It wasn't quite a crash landing, but it wasn't a gentle landing, either. Their car jolted to a stop in a plaza right in front of the embassy offices. Garrus winced as civilians fled screaming, though he had to applaud their good sense. Tali's head drooped toward her chest as she let go of the controls. Garrus looked at her with alarm, but said calmly, "Okay, Tali, we're just going to need to run over there and up the stairs. Think you can make it?"

"Sure," she said, sounding breathless but lifting her head. He gave her vital signs a skeptical look. "No problem," she said, noticing his scrutiny.

He grabbed her arm, nonetheless, her good arm, and prepared to carry her if necessary. There was no way he was going to leave her behind at this point. He opened the door and ran.

They hadn't quite made the base of the steps when three C-Sec cars settled in behind them, and he heard Aediem's voice shouting, "Halt!" Garrus ignored him and kept running. Then there was a barrage of gunfire. His shields flickered and gave out, and he felt a couple of rounds slam into his armor. He pushed Tali between himself and the wall.

"Cease fire, C-Sec," called an unfamiliar voice. "We'll take this from here."

"You don't have the authority," Junius Aediem returned, sounding furious. Garrus couldn't help feeling just a little pleased by that fact.

"Your head in my sights is pretty much the authority I need," said the first voice. Human male, Garrus thought. "The rest you can take up with my ambassador. In fact, I think he's calling your superiors right now."

There was a short, seething silence. "Hold fire," Aediem snapped. Everything became quiet.

Garrus glanced around. At the top of the stairs was a human marine team. Just three people, but all of them had weapons aimed at the C-Sec investigator, who stood furiously in the plaza. Cautiously, Garrus edged his way up the stairs. Tali followed, and he tried not to worry too much about her ragged breaths. The human in the middle gestured Garrus and Tali behind his team. Then the five of them moved smoothly away from the plaza entrance, back toward the embassy offices. Once they were out of sight of the plaza, the marine commander holstered his rifle. "Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance," he identified himself. "I hear you've got something for us."

#

Inside the embassy offices, Garrus recognized the human ambassador, Udina. He didn't know the others, but the older man in Alliance uniform quickly introduced himself as Anderson and the younger marines, in armor, as the ground team from Eden Prime. Tali launched into her explanation of how she'd acquired the geth data, an explanation which was a little more scattered than the first time Garrus had heard it. He frowned at her, noting her rising fever, but the humans all seemed to be listening intently.

They listened even more intently when she played the recording. "That's definitely Saren," Anderson said, sounding excited. "We've got him this time."

Garrus cleared his throat. Uncomfortable, he nonetheless felt obliged to put in, "The voice match isn't close enough to pass the C-Sec evidence standard."

Udina brushed it off. "No matter. Together with Shepard's report from Eden Prime, it should be enough." His thin lips stretched out into a smile. "We can take this to the Council. I'll set up a call immediately."

"Do you think it'll be enough for them to authorize going after Saren?" asked the marine commander, Shepard, speaking for the first time since he'd ushered Tali and Garrus into the office.

Udina's smile grew wider, even predatory. "Better than that, we should be able to accelerate the process and have you named Spectre."

Garrus swallowed. His heartbeat suddenly seemed loud in his own ears. The man had been under consideration for Spectre? He hadn't realized that. There had never been a human Spectre before. He lowered his eyes. He'd given up that dream, long ago, to pursue a career in C-Sec, a career that now seemed ashes behind him.

"Really, sir?" asked one of the other marines, the male; Garrus had missed his name. "It wasn't Shepard's work that got us that evidence—uh, no offense, Commander."

"None taken," said Shepard dryly. "I've been spending the last few days on a wild goose chase. It was these two." He gestured in their direction. "Tali'Zorah was the one who found the evidence, and Vakarian was the one who recognized it was significant."

Garrus lifted his head. For a moment he had a wild hope that _he_ might use this, somehow, to request Spectre evaluation again, but the two older men had fallen silent, both frowning. Udina shook his head abruptly. "The Council doesn't have to know that."

Anderson's frown deepened. "Now wait a minute..."

"It was a human colony that the geth attacked." Udina's voice grew sharp. "The Council wants to write it off as a human problem. Well, then we must have a human Spectre to solve the problem. You know better than anyone we've been working toward this for _decades_, Anderson."

Anderson stiffened very slightly. "I'm well aware, Ambassador," he ground out.

"So. Officer Vakarian." It wasn't his correct title, but Garrus couldn't summon up the energy to correct him. Now that the need to run was gone, the nagging aches in his head and knee and shoulder turned to throbbing, and his body was flooded with fatigue. The ambassador moved toward him with assurance, his stare surprisingly compelling. "I am sure you are no stranger to expedience, and there is a great deal at stake here. You must be aware of how important Spectres are."

"I am," he replied, struggling to keep his tones neutral, even though it hardly mattered, since no one in the room could hear him properly anyway. "I was once considered a prospect myself."

Udina's mouth drew together. "Then you can surely understand how important it will be to have the first human Spectre authorized to hunt down Saren Arterius."

Garrus couldn't help but bristle, even though he was convinced of Saren's guilt. The human sounded just a little too pleased with the idea of hunting the Spectre as if he were vermin. The demand underlying the ambassador's speech hit him like a hammer a moment later.

"You want me to lie."

"Think about it, Officer," said Udina. "A mission like this requires a full-fledged Spectre. A new Spectre. All the others have past associations with Arterius. If anything were to impede Shepard's appointment as Spectre, that would be... irresponsible."

Garrus's head throbbed. He could hardly believe what he was hearing, but it made a kind of sense. Part of him resisted, wanted to rage against the blatant manipulation. The notion of lying to the Council, playing into the ambassador's political games, disgusted him. The idea of pretending his own actions had been done by another stung his pride. But maybe it was fitting. He'd screwed up. His actions had led to Pallin's death, left a trail of chaos through C-Sec. It seemed petty to demand he get what little credit he'd earned. Besides, the ambassador was right that it was important to pursue Saren as quickly and as vigorously as possible.

Lying, though—that still stuck in his gizzard.

Garrus looked up, and all five of the humans were frowning in his direction. He shook his head slowly. "I don't know."

"The sooner you make up your mind, the sooner we can bring this criminal Spectre to justice," Udina said.

Tali touched his elbow. Garrus pulled away. "I need to think about this."

"Of course. As much time as you need." The ambassador smiled.

Garrus stalked out onto the balcony and rested his hands on the railing, trying to clear his head.

#

Tali bit her lip as she watched Garrus go, leaning against the railing. She could see his shoulders drooping even in his armor. It wasn't fair to demand he decide this right now, after all they'd been through in the last few days. She didn't entirely like that they were behaving as if the decision were solely his to make, either, though she knew deep down that she'd go along with his choice. That still didn't make what they were doing right. Tali glared at the ambassador, who looked rather pleased with himself. Everyone else, she thought, looked uncomfortable. Commander Shepard, in particular, was rubbing the back of his neck and shifting his weight from side to side. Were they really going to go along with this? She marched toward him.

"You can't let this happen," she said.

The human shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his arms over his chest. "Look, it's not up to me. The Council's going to decide what to do about Saren and who's going to be a Spectre."

Tali planted her hands on her hips and rocked forward on her toes, wishing that she were tall enough to really face down the man. "And if you become a Spectre, do you want it to be because you took credit for someone else's work?"

He winced and lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. "It's not like that..."

"It's _exactly_ like that," she hissed. "You couldn't come up with the evidence you needed on your own. Garrus and I had to figure things out all by ourselves. He risked his career and his life to help me because he thought it was right. Not because of the politics of it. If he thought like your ambassador, he would have helped cover up for Saren. I risked my life, too. This isn't just about you humans. The geth are a threat to everyone." A fit of coughing suddenly shook her. Her head swam, and her arm throbbed. She really needed to see a doctor soon.

The human frowned at her. "Are you all right?"

"No, I'm not all right!" she shouted. "I've been shot and cut and I have an allergic reaction setting in."

The other human male reached toward her, his brow furrowed, but somehow Garrus had a steadying arm around her shoulders first. She hadn't heard him come back in. He said, "Easy, Tali. We should get you to a doctor."

"'M fine," she grumbled, trying to shrug off the support.

"Try that again, with less swaying," he suggested, a thin note of humor underlying the fatigue in his voice. Tali sighed and stopped resisting.

"Listen," said Shepard. "Detective Vakarian—"

Garrus growled under his breath and gave the man a hard look. "If you're going to try to convince me to lie for you, save your breath."

The human woman scowled and took a step forward. "Watch it—" she started, but the commander held up a hand.

"Easy, Williams. I respect your honesty, Vakarian, but—"

"That's not what I meant. Look, I don't like this, but... stopping Saren is more important than I am. If you need me to say that you found the evidence, I'll do it."

Tali closed her eyes. He was really going to do it, pretend he'd done nothing, and let the humans have their way. "Garrus, don't," she said.

"It's fine," he said, sounding very weary. "Or, it's not, but it's necessary. The only thing I want in exchange is help clearing both our names."

"That's not what I was going to say," said the human. Tali opened her eyes again.

Shepard gave them both a crooked smile. "I think we got off on the wrong foot here." Tali looked down, baffled as to which foot could be the wrong one. She looked up when he continued, "Tali's right. If I'm going to be the first human Spectre, I'm going to earn it. Both of you have put in a lot of effort here, and you can clearly handle yourselves. I mean to find Saren and stop him, whatever his plans are. I could use you both on my team."

"You want us to join your crew?" Tali asked, startled.

"That's right," he said, looking her over. "We can even offer medical attention." He turned his attention back to Garrus. "And nobody needs to lie about anything."

The arm around Tali's shoulders relaxed very slightly. "That's good," Garrus said after a moment. "I'm really a very bad liar. Chances are Councilor Sparatus would be able to tell."

Shepard's smile widened. "Best we avoid that, then. Let me go talk to the ambassador."

He headed over to talk to the older men, the other two marines trailing after him. Tali coughed again, and Garrus led her to the nearest chair and deposited her in it. "You should sit, too," she said, looking up. "You don't look so good."

"Fine," he sighed, and pulled over a second chair, settling into it and leaning his elbows on his knees.

"Do you really think they're going to let us join the crew?" Tali asked.

They both looked over at the humans. Ambassdor Udina was frowning and gesturing vigorously, but Captain Anderson was looking at Shepard and nodding slowly. Shepard glanced back at them, closed one eye, smiled, and held up his fist, his thumb protruding upward.

"What does that mean?" Tali whispered.

"Uh... I think that's a good sign?" said Garrus doubtfully. "I think I've seen human C-Sec officers do that sometimes?"

This could actually be happening. They might be able to see this struggle through. A thrill, or a shiver, went through her. She hoped it wasn't just the fever. "We're going to try to stop the geth."

"And get justice for Pallin's murder. While chasing down a rogue Spectre." Garrus glanced sideways at her. "It'll probably be dangerous."

Tali smiled. Definitely a thrill. Shyly, she reached for his hand. He closed the distance, hands interlocking, and squeezed. "I can hardly wait," she said.

He probably couldn't see her smile, but his mandibles flared out, and by now she'd learned to read his smile. "Neither can I."


End file.
